Sometimes there's nowhere to go but up. But the climb back to economic health isn't necessarily easy, as South Africa, once the continent's top economy, is finding out.
International Business Machines Corp. says it's ramping up its digital-skills training program to accommodate as many as 25 million Africans in the next five years, looking toward building a future workforce on the continent.
Consolidated Contracting Co. (CCC), one of the largest construction and engineering companies in the Middle East, has built and tested an active radio frequency identification-based tool to automatically capture data regarding the comings and goings of thousands of workers at several gas-production plants in the region.
A Johannesburg startup is set to become the first company ever to manufacture smartphones in Africa, taking advantage of low costs and growing local demand to build handsets, tablets and other devices based on Google Inc.'s Android system.
Africa wants to become fertile ground for new energy investment - investments that would help electrify parts of the continent and make it ripe for new businesses and new jobs, the African Development Bank says.
Middle East aluminum producers are boosting metal shipments to the U.S. to fill a supply gap left from plant closings. Since 1980, U.S. output has dropped from 4.6 million metric tons by 32 smelters to about 700,000 tons by five smelters this year, said Jorge Vazquez, managing director of Austin, Texas-based Harbor Intelligence. The last U.S. smelter to open was in 1985, he said.
An official inquiry into the explosion on the scrapped FPSO Aces confirmed that the massive blast was caused by hundreds of thousands of gallons of petroleum products on board. The inquiry, as reported by local media, said that about 375,000 gallons of fuel and 425,000 gallons of lubricants were on board the vessel.