May 25, 2007. /Lesprom Network/. Nampak's growth is firmly on track, with the announcement on May 24, 2007 that the company achieved volume and revenue growth for the first six months of the financial year. Volume in South Africa grew by 4% and group revenue increased by 11%. Trading income was also up by 15% and headline earnings per share increased by 17% (before the adjustment for the fair valuing of financial instruments). Overall growth was attributed to continued demand for non-durables and an increase in exports from South Africa, as well as good trading performances by the company's African operations. Last year's improved European performance was maintained at a similar level in Pounds, and this resulted in a substantial improvement in Rands due to the weaker exchange rate. The volume improvement in South Africa would have been even better if it hadn't been for the CO2 shortage, which impacted on the sale of packaging for carbonated soft drinks. 'The beverage sector is an important contributor to our bottom-line and the shortage of CO2 affected sales of cans and other beverage packaging products,' said Nampak CEO, John Bortolan. Notwithstanding this challenging situation, Nampak successfully grew beverage can volumes by 3%. The rest of the metals business performed well, with food can volumes rising by 5% and aerosol cans showing above average growth. Strong demand for fast foods, cement, disposable diapers and toilet tissue positively impacted the paper business, while similar upward trends in toothpaste tubes, food tubs and PET soft drink bottles buoyed plastics' volumes. Major capital expenditure programmes geared at meeting customer demand and technology improvement, including the ZAR 500 million ($70.1 million) paper mill and second cartons line in Nigeria, are well underway. Several exciting new projects are also in the pipeline, such as the installation of additional capacity in meat cans and aerosols, and a range of new investments in the rigid and flexible plastics sectors. The ZAR 160 million ($22.4 million) beverage can line conversion is in progress and the first batch of smooth-neck cans was produced recently. They're expected to enter the trade later this month. On the subject of Europe, Bortolan said that a full strategic review had taken place, which included a thorough investigation of all the options. Following this review, it has been decided to retain the businesses and to implement certain restructuring and other opportunities for improving their overall performance. The cautionary originally issued in February has now been withdrawn. At the end of 2006, Bortolan said that the foundations were firmly in place to grow the company. These latest figures clearly show that Nampak is on track to deliver a solid set of results for the year. Nampak is Africa's largest packaging organization which has 81 operations in South Africa, 19 operations in 10 other countries in Africa. Turnover in the financial year ending September 2004 was ZAR 17.5 billion.