In the same way that it had a hugely symbolic meaning to ancient Egyptian culture, gold was just as central to ancient Greeks, in this case as a financial commodity. In fact it was as early as 550 BC that the Greeks had begun mining for gold across the Mediterranean and into Middle Eastern territory. By 325 BC, the Greeks had successfully mined across an area spanning from Gibraltar to Asia Minor and Egypt.

Dubbed Hope City, it will be built on empty land and will employ approximately 50,000 people, and provide housing for 25,000.

The head of local technology giant RLG Communications, Roland Agambire, has revealed that his company was investing in Hope City with the aim of making Ghana globally competitive.

"What we are trying to do here is to develop the apps [applications] from scratch," he said. "This will enable us to have the biggest assembling plant in the world to assemble various products - over one million within a day.”.

The wind project, which will be the largest single private investment in Kenya’s history, has the added backing of the African Development Bank, Kenya Power and Vision 2030. The signing of the Letter of Support for the project will now allow it to enter the final phase of financing.

The company’s 12 percent profit rise, to the tune of £443 million, was underpinned by the strong performance of its minerals division.

Weir Minerals, which specialises in supplying slurry handling equipment, was boosted by continued demand growth in Chinese and emerging markets for key commodities such as copper.

Weir also said cost efficiencies helped it achieve a record year, which saw revenue up by 12 percent to more than £2.5 billion.

During a recent discussion, a customer of one of my clients described an episode of the popular television series House in response to a question that I had asked. In that episode, Drs. House and Wilson had made a bet as to which could hide a chicken in the hospital for the longest time without being detected by security. A young doctor on the staff asked a colleague why each of the two senior department heads had chickens in the hospital. The answer she got was “The store only had one pig”.

Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are more active in international markets than ever before. Advances in technology and lower barriers to international trade have made it easier for them to compete globally, yet building a network of subsidiaries presents a fundamental challenge, with each business unit operating in a different environment.

Alberto Salas, president, La Sociedad Nacional de Minería (the national mining society of Chile)

What is the historical role of SONAMI?
La Sociedad Nacional de Minería (SONAMI) is one of the oldest business organizations in Chile. This year we’ll have been running for 129 years and during that time we have played a key role in the development of the mining sector.