PRIVATE hospital group Curamed opened the new R140m Curamed Kloof Hospital in Pretoria yesterday.

CONSUMER spending remained robust in the first quarter with retail sales showing steady growth, according to figures released yesterday by Statistics SA.

Metboard Properties Limited year-end results highlight a year of active property trading and significant vacancy reductions.

Labour legislation, high interest rates and a volatile currency could cost the textile and associated industries 30 000 jobs over the next year unless challenges were addressed urgently, Walter Simeoni, the president of the Textile Federation, said yesterday.

Industry needs to implement detailed management plans.

Cape Town - Stella Sigcau, the minister of public works, yesterday said she hoped to at last have a firmer handle on the value of all state property by the end of the 2003/04 financial year.

Seasonally adjusted retail sales rose by 1.7 percent in the first quarter compared with the fourth quarter of last year, according to the latest figures by Statistics SA. Sales were 3.1 percent higher in the first quarter compared with the same period last year.

Cape Town's R582 million convention centre, due to officially open at the end of this month, is planning to run exhibitions in advance this week and next.

BAGHDAD A city pockmarked by bombed-out buildings and blighted by daily power cuts may be an unlikely place to launch an upmarket estate agency, but Malik Khafoury is confident that Baghdad can be profitable

CONSUMER spending remained robust in the first quarter with retail sales showing steady growth, according to figures released yesterday by Statistics SA.