It is plain for all to see that the South African construction economy is boiling over at the moment.

There are cranes on every city horizon, trenches along just about every main and arterial road and a new multibillion-rand project announcement just about every other week.

What is less palpable, though, is whether these strong demand conditions are helping to foster a new generation of construction companies, particularly black-owned ones, able to compete effectively with the established contractors.

Unfortunately, current analysis of the industry-development trend shows few signs of success in this regard.

The structure remains 'bottom heavy' with too few emerging contractors breaching the lower grades. This means there is effectively too much com- petition for the smaller projects and far too little for the top-end work.

There is also no clear and obvious route for redressing the problem.

The Construction Industry Development Board is looking at various solutions, but most of these appear to rely heavily on the largesse of the existing contractors, many of which are so swamped that adding an additional demand could not only be unfair, but even counterproductive.

This said, it would be unwise to allow the opportunity being created by demand security to go begging.

Beyond the cover story, though, there are a number of other thought- provoking pieces in this week's edition of Engineering News.

For instance, we take a look at an audacious plan by a South African entrepreneur to build space rockets; offer insight into South Africa's first independent power plant funded by carbon credits generated under the Clean Development Mechanism; report on plans for a possible new 200 000-bl/d crude-oil refinery for the Eastern Cape; delve into Denel's flagship missile programme; and provide a heads-up on the US-Africa Business Summit, to be held in Cape Town from November 14 to 16.

Our online offering, meanwhile, continues to grow from strength to strength.

We have added a range of multimedia offerings to the site, including weekly podcasts and audio and video clips, which are now associated with many of our articles.

Tens of thousands have also signed up for our free daily email service, where our aspiration is to keep our readers up to the minute with each and every breaking news story shaping South Africa's real economy.