Profits rose 1.5 percent, compared to the same time last year, to 63.1bn yuan ($10.3 billion) in the six months to June, with the results buoyed by a strong rise in wireless data revenue. Operating revenue meanwhile rose ten percent to 303.1bn yuan, even in the face of stiff competition from its fellow state-owned rivals and the country’s slower economic growth.

The company said its subscriber base rose by around 30 million to 740 million users at the end of 2012.

The company’s net profit for the April-to-June period came in at a better-than-expected $174 million, up from $141 million a year ago, boosted by the doubling in the sale of mobile devices.

The bank made a net profit of A$7.7 billion ($7 billion) for the year to 30 June, up 8 percent from the previous year. This impressive figure is the result of a combination of growing deposits and a higher margin between the rate of interest earned on loans and the rate paid out to savers.

For the six months to the end of June the company made an operating profit of £1.4 billion, a rise of 22 percent compared to the same period last year. In the first half of 2013 almost sales of Prudential’s sales came from Asia, where new business profit in the region also rose by 20 percent.

It was in December that Prudential said it had already doubled its Asian operating profit and increased the amount of cash that its Asian business sent back to the group to its £300m target for cash remittances.

Having had an established presence in the country since 1968, Total Namibia first opened its doors in 1977. Today the subsidiary of the continent’s leading petroleum marketer has a total of 28 service stations across Namibia, 77 commercial sites, five sites located within its national parks and four depots, which are found in Windhoek, Otavi, Gobabis and Walvis Bay.

The venture would involve the combining of Tesco's 131 stores in China with CRE's almost 3,000 Vanguard stores to create what they say would be the leading multi-format retailer in China.

CRE, which would control 80 percent of the new chain, said that the venture would bring together its "deep understanding of local customers, established nationwide infrastructure and proven track record as a partner with Tesco's global retail expertise, international sourcing scale and supply chain capabilities.”

Petrojam is a limited company jointly owned by PDVCaribe, a subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) which owns 40 percent of its shares, and the Petroleum Company of Jamaica (PCJ). Petrojam was established in 1982 when the Government of Jamaica purchased the Kingston Refinery from Esso, which had built and operated it since 1964. Put simply, Petrojam's job is to supply refined products to the people and businesses of Jamaica.

Until as recently as 2010 it appeared that all southern African countries had to offer in terms of oil and gas were scattered pockets of natural gas off the coasts of South Africa and Mozambique. The event that changed this perception was the discovery of a potential 500 trillion cubic feet of gas across South Africa and Mozambique, in addition to an estimated eleven billion barrels of oil in Namibia.

From you position within the IFC, what is your perception of the global mining sector today?

Financial Directors with high blood pressures should look away now. Project management in most organisations is run by people who have no notion of pulling the plug on something that is certain to end in failure. In fact many of them suffer from what we call Project Mastermind Disorder: they’ve started, so they’ll finish. No matter what the cost.