Construction World June 2016
COMMENT
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In this issue there is an interview with Bruce Morton, the executive officer of Basil Read’s Roads Division. He explains why this division is increasingly becoming a transportation division. For him, it is no longer about a roads division building a product, in isolation. It is about the bigger picture: how roads form part of a country’s infrastructure; how it can become part of the national imperative.
Infrastructure will play a vital role in how African economies can diver- sify its offering – to make them both competitive and less reliant on the Far East. Pictured in the Kwale mineral sands export facility in Kenya.
Opportunity despite the slump According to Nepad Business Foundation CEO, Lynette Chen, stimulating the African continent’s future economic growth will depend on how quickly African countries can diversify what they export – and so move away from reliance on single-resource exportation. Over and above this, there will have to be an increase in inter-African trade. For this, a vast improvement in the African transportation infrastructure is needed – such as the east to west and north to south routes that Morton mentioned during the interview. A result of the lack of adequate transportation is that the cost of trading has remained high – this in turn preventing potential African exports from competing on global and even regional markets.
This is applicable in the African context where infrastructure is so lacking. The wealth of commodities that Africa possesses can often not be transported to ports to, in turn, create wealth for the countries of origin. Sadly, there has now – following a drop in commodity prices and China’s weaker demand for Africa’s resources, been a slowdown in the demand of even those commodities that can be transported to ports. It seems to be a vicious cycle and one can only predict that there may now be even less need to develop infrastructure networks. This does not have to be the case. The New Partnership for Africa’s Develop- ment (Nepad) says that because of these reasons (lower commodity prices and a cooldown in China), African economies are slumping and GDP growth stagnating in the continent’s emerging markets.
Two reminders: • Best Projects 2016 is now open for entries. Please see the overview of the awards and entry requirements on page 12. • Sustainable Construction World will be published in October. This will be our second sustainable supplement. Although green building is still very much in its infancy in South Africa, it is becoming vital. Support this supplement with advertising or editorial.
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Wilhelm du Plessis Editor
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CONSTRUCTION WORLD JUNE 2016
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