Construction, technology, maritime transport... Portrait of three Pioneering Spanish companies on the continent, from Algeria to Equatorial Guinea via Kenya.

• Typsa charts its course

In early October, Typsa won two tenders for the supervision of the first phases of the Luanda Technology  Park construction site, led by the Chinese Huawei. Project of the Angolan government and  < a href="javascript:void(0);"> African Bank de development (AfDB), this park should open its doors in December 2021. This new contract completes the already well-filled order book  in Africa of the Spanish construction giant. Orders whose amounts reached 45 million euros in 2019, an increase of 100% since 2015.

On the continent, the group employs around 80 people and generates 7% of its overall turnover, estimated for 2019 at €250.6 million. Typsa teams  are currently supervising the construction of  Bugesera International  Airport, Rwanda, and Kalaa Kebira Dam  , Tunisia, where they are also providing technical assistance for the construction of  six desalination plants . Typsa also designed the highway project between Zeway and Arsi Negele in Ethiopia.

In March, the group was appointed to work on the project  to rehabilitate the 330-kilometer  Belabo-Ngaounderé railway line in Cameroon with a budget of 208 million euros. In 2021, he will work on the construction of 170 kilometers of roads traced in the Angolan Cabinda.

Arriving on the African continent in the 1970s to supervise the Al-Izdihar dam in Algeria, Typsa has since greatly strengthened its presence in some thirty  countries, with permanent offices in Tunisia, Morocco and Kenya. The group also relies on its subsidiary Agrer, acquired in 2012 and already very experienced since it was at the end of the 1950s that it set up its first project on the continent, in DR Congo. Its Portuguese subsidiary Tecnofisil, based in Lisbon, has also enabled  it to penetrate the Portuguese-speaking market (Guinea-Bissau, Angola, Mozambique, Malawi).

• Indra, digitally yours

In recent years, many  African countries have invested in their transport infrastructure  (airports, ports, roads) and energy infrastructure while accentuating their urban development. Today, they need  to make these various equipment safer and more efficient through digital technologies and solutions. That's where Indra comes in.

Present in Africa since 1995, the group first gained a foothold in the Maghreb, mainly in the field of technologies applied to different modes of transport (air, rail, maritime, road) and the defense sector  . It now focuses on air traffic management – where it works with leading navigation service  providers  such as Asecna, which covers seventeen countries – and  energy. Its two regional directorates south of the Sahara are located in Dakar for West and Central Africa , and in Nairobi for East and Southern Africa . It is also in Kenya that Indra has set up its continent-wide technical expertise centre.

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We are one of the continent's leading references in these sectors

The Spanish group recently started the implementation of the integrated management system of  the Gambia Power and Water  Company (Nawec), funded by the World Bank. "We are one of the continent's main references in these sectors, says Emeric Osmont, Director for West and Central Africa . We are looking with  increasing interest at the digital transformation projects of public administrations and governments: finance, justice, health, tourism, as well as the fields of biometrics and electoral processes. »

Indra is currently supporting the Moroccan and Algerian governments in their digital transformation during  programs such as the Smart City Project in Casablanca or the tax management and information system  of the General Directorate of Taxes in Algeria. Of its €3.2 billion  in revenue in 2019, Indra generated nearly  €400 million in the Asia, Middle East and Africa (Amea) region.

• Marguisa, the versatility asset

As she proudly announces, the Spanish company Marguisa is the first maritime operator of Equatorial Guinea. And this for more than  thirty years, when the carrier, then just launched, was still called Mares de Guinea SA. Having since become Marguisa, the company quickly made a name for itself throughout the continent, which is still its main market today.

From its origins, Marguisa has focused on connecting Spain to its former African colony, mainly to transport logs and sawn wood. The company has since diversified its activities, since it is present on containerized, ro-ro and multipurpose traffic (solid bulk, heavy packages, industrial freight...). Its membership of the Sea & Ports entity, also active in the port handling sector  , has enabled  it to strengthen its presence in Africa, where it has about twenty locations scattered along the coast between Tunisia and Angola, but also in Latin America, Asia and the ports of Northern Europe.

Marguisa has also, over time, completed its fleet. It now  has five container ships with a capacity of 3,600 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) to carry out its seven weekly rotations, including five on Africa, to which have been added two multi-purpose vessels for monthly services.

Thus organized, Marguisa seems to have found its cruising speed on the continent. Especially since, since October, the company has linked its destiny to that of United Heavy Lift (UHL) to create United Marguisa Lines (UML), a specialist in the transport of heavy parcels and other industrial bulk. A way to support the increase of its local activities, in the wake of African economic growth.

A dynamic that Covid-19 has barely slowed down and that Francisco Duran, its director, hopes to revive "by developing UML's activities in East Africa or by [being] interested in the development of the hydrocarbon sector, in Mozambique in particular".