development

Cape Town-based Roth Medical Components was named Africa's top small business at the first Africa SMME Awards function in Johannesburg.

Film producers Jeremy Nathan and Joel Phiri formed the company DV8 to develop, produce and market 12 genuinely South African digital feature films over the next three years. DV8's second film is in production, the third has been selected - and the search is still on for exciting South African writers and filmmakers for the nine remaining movies.

On Wednesday, Makhaya Ntini - rightly regarded one of the most important players in the history of South African cricket - became only the fifth South African to appear in 100 cricket tests.

African Oxygen Limited has won the Technology Top 100 award for South Africa's most outstanding technological innovation of 2003 for its world benchmark escape type breathing units or "AfroxPacs" - self-contained self-rescuers that are carried by underground miners for use in emergency situations.

President Thabo Mbeki has called on world leaders to put their differences aside and recommit themselves to strengthening the United Nations.

As companies worldwide respond to increasing cost and efficiency pressures, South Africa is well placed to become a favoured international location for outsourced call centres and business process outsourcing.

Following a call by Nelson Mandela to make protected areas useful for poverty alleviation, the fifth World Parks Congress in Durban has passed a number of recommendations on poverty and protected areas, challenging the conventional approach of excluding people and prohibiting resource use within protected areas.

The director of the World Conservation Union (WCU), Akim Steiner, says the business sector has expressed willingness to contribute towards conservation as part of their social responsibilities towards sustainable development.

South Africa has welcomed the publication of a United Nations report on the state of protected areas around the world, saying the document is an important source of information for the conservation community and government agencies.

The Industrial Development Corporation, a government-owned development finance institution, has signed a US$125-million loan agreement with a number of international commercial banks.