Iraq's dated oil infrastructure desperately needs updating and expanding so it can meet increasing demands. The government has ambitious plans, but can it engage the international oil companies to invest in them?

Iraq has made solid progress in developing its oil capabilities and has ambitious plans to increase production further, according to its minister of oil, Abdul Karim al-Luaibi.

The natural resources sector has seen a year of massive investment, with a record value of mergers and acquisitions in 2010. Much of this demand has come from power-hungry Asia

Bolivia has a budget surplus and a store of foreign currency, and there are plans to make it an export hub for electric power and natural gas. Hugh O'Shaughnessy met Bolivia’s vice-president to talk business

Francophone Gabon is not the most high-profile of African countries, but with a new prime minister, the hosting of a major football tournament and investors being drawn to its resource-rich land, could that change?

Oil reserves discovered in Uganda have the potential to transform the economic status of one of the world's least developed countries. But ongoing political friction in the country and indecision over the laws pertaining to the extraction of the oil are causing concerns about just how beneficial the money from these reserves will be to the country as a whole.

Indonesia has achieved significant economic growth in the past three years and now, with the help of a new development plan, its government has set the ambitious target of transforming the country into a major economic power by 2025. Can Indonesia compete on the same stage as Asia's behemoth economies such as India and China, or will the basic issues of infrastructure and inflation continue to hold it back?