Author Archives: Darren Marchal

Xstrata to spend $246m to expand Australia zinc

Miner Xstrata, the world’s biggest integrated zinc producer, will spend A$274m ($246m) to boost output at its George Fisher mine in Australia by nearly 30 percent by 2013. Xstrata said in a statement it had got approvals from the state government of Queensland to proceed with the expansion of the mine at the group’s Mt….

Central American region enters EU

Six years ago the Central American Region and Dominican Republic signed the Free Trade Agreement with the US (DR-CAFTA). The treaty has eliminated commercial barriers and taxes for the introduction of certain products, which certainly has brought further economic development for the participant countries. Despite the international financial crisis there has been a considerable increment…

Advisories eye Moroccan deals

Kettani Law Firm (KLF) is a major Moroccan business law firm founded in 1971 by Professor Azzedine Kettani who was admitted to practice as a lawyer in 1968 and is approved by the High Court of Justice of the Kingdom of Morocco. He was joined in 1992 – after internships in France and the US…

Austria relaxes legal hurdles

In the past, the registration of a branch of an English company in Austria encountered significant legal resistance and was often rejected by the courts. The cause of this resistance was more often than not a lack of understanding of the Austrian courts of the legal structure of English companies and the inability of the…

Is the recovery still under construction?

It used to be said that you could measure a city’s economic wellbeing in direct proportion to the number of tower cranes visible along its skyline. But now, with so many building projects shelved or in limbo awaiting remission from the downturn, the exact opposite is often true, with those erstwhile symbols of prosperity standing…

Tanzania poised to become a destination

The largest state in East Africa has for decades been best known for its touristic attractions – most notably the ever snow capped Mount Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti National Park and the Ngorongoro Crater. Mining is giving the country a new layer of international prominence. In little more than a decade, Tanzania has emerged from being…

Short-term pain, 
long-term gain

The credit crisis waves of 2008 triggered a panic across the globe and to all types of sectors, irrelevant of their operating nature. The storm specially haunted the financial services sector, where the Kuwaiti banking sector was no exception to its regional and international counterparts. Crunching derivative loss at one of the prominent local bank,…

Airline launches green initiative

Kenya Airways regained profitability in the year 2009/10 despite the difficult economic climate. During the year ending 31 March 2010, KQ made an operating profit of $24m. This was a remarkable achievement given the economic downturn experienced during most of the financial year. The capacity deployed increased by 6.7 percent largely driven by new destinations…