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8

CONSTRUCTION WORLD

MARCH

2016

Perrie is one of South Africa's leading authorities on concrete

pavements and globally respected in this field, having delivered

papers on the subject at dozens of top-level conferences all over

the world. He was elected to the new ISCP post at a recent ISCP meeting

which coincided with the Transportation Research Board's 95

th

annual

meeting held in Washington, and

is the first South African to serve in

this capacity.

ISCP, of which Perrie has been

a board member for several years,

has since its establishment in 1997

aimed to "facilitate the advance-

ment of knowledge and technology

related to concrete pavements

through education, technology

transfer and research at an inter-

national level".

The ISCP's current Board of

Directors include concrete pave-

ment authorities frommany coun-

tries including Chile, Germany,

Australia, USA, Canada, and

Belgium.

Bryan Perrie has been elected

vice-president of the Inter-

national Society for Concrete

Pavements (ISCP).

In a new video, ‘Mega Trends in Africa’, Frost & Sullivan experts and

C-level executives note that Africa is the only continent that has the

potential to achieve double digit economic growth within the next

decade. It is expected that close to half of the continent’s population will

live in large cities and that 58% of its working age population (15–64) will

exist in 2025. If this trend continues for the next 20 years, Africa will have

the highest labour population surpassing both China and India.

“The growth rates promised by Africa are second to that of South East Asia

at the moment”, notes Hendrik Malan, operations director at Frost & Sullivan

Since its establishment in 2005, Ariya has delivered a number of South

Africa’s high-profiled and prestigious infrastructure projects and exemplifies

the ability of empowered companies to meet the rigorous challenges in the

local built environment.

The acquisition gears GladAfrica to be the largest 100% black-owned

consultancy group in Southern Africa. According to GladAfrica’s executive

chairman, Noel Mashaba, “We wanted to create a completely African-born

organisation within the built environment, while realising our vision of

creating life-changing built-environment solutions. The Group will now

operate and offer all full services from all nine provinces in South Africa

with a strengthened project management capacity and the ability to further

customise our comprehensive selection of project management services.”

Ariya is wholly black-owned with a 35% black women shareholding, as

well as a level 2 B-BBEE and an international ISO 9001: 2008 accreditation.

While GladAfrica will retain its engineering consulting arm, the group will

establish a new specialised company to focus primarily on project manage-

ment services, including development management, tenant co-ordination

and installation and procurement management. Ariya’s current managing

director, Sigi Naidoo, will continue as managing director of the new entity.

Given the solid track records of both companies in the industry and

their similar work ethic and cultural fit, the new team is set to offer the local

and regional markets exciting alternative,

value-added services. Ariya’s notable list of

recent projects include the MyCity BRT in

Cape Town, Green Point Stadium and the

University of Mpumalanga.

According to Naidoo, “We embraced

this opportunity to join the GladAfrica team

in a joint pursuance of delivering innovative

engineering and project management

solutions. I have no doubt that together

we will create a notable force in the built

environment consulting sector.”

STUDY REVEALS HUGE AFRICAN GROWTH

Urbanisation, mobility, infrastructure, natural

resources, telecommunications investments and

inter-regional trade are just a few of the untapped

opportunities making Africa the last growth frontier.

The continent is set to become the second fastest

growing region by 2025, with a gross domestic

product (GDP) of USD4,5-trillion.

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Africa. “The big advantage that Africa does have, believe it

or not, is the lack of infrastructure and the lack of legacy

systems because our ability to leapfrog technologies and

get access to that growth much sooner than, for instance,

South East Asia had the ability to do is significantly better”.

Some of the key trends revealed

in the ‘Mega Trends in Africa’ analysis

Africa will have tremendous market potential for firms operating in the

digital currency space. By the end of 2015, there will be 12 million Bitcoin

wallets in Africa. Nearly one-third of Kenyans will be using a Bitcoin wallet.

Online retail will grow significantly in the next five years and will account

for nearly 7% of total retail sales in Africa in 2025. Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt,

and Kenya are emerging as the top markets for online retailing in Africa.

Energy demand will grow to 930.4 MTOE in 2025, which is more than

double the current demand. The mining and minerals industry will be the

bulk consumers of energy by 2025. Africa will grow from its current nascent

stage to an emerging renewable energy hub with a substantial compound

annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8% by 2025

Africa’s trade volume is likely to grow threefold by 2030. East Africa is

projected to have the highest growth in trade volume, driven by improved

transportation infrastructure. The Proposed Free Trade Area (T-FTA) between

South African Development Community (SADC), Common Market for

Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and East African Community (EAC)

is expected to drive imports by an average of 60% by 2020.

UNIQUE AFRICAN-BORN

CONSULTANCY

Engineering consultancy, GladAfrica Group recently

announced the acquisition of Ariya Project Managers.

Noel Mashaba: executive chairman

(right), Kulani Curtis Lebese: group

CEO (middle) and Sigi Naidoo: Ariya

Project Managers (left).

INTERNATIONAL POST

FOR BRYAN PERRIE

Bryan Perrie, managing director of The Con-

crete Institute, has been elected vice-president

of the Interna

tional Society for Concrete Pave-

ments (ISCP).

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