Clothing retailer, Foschini, on the Thursday said it is part of its strategy going forward to launch 21 new stores in the African continent in the short term.

This announcement comes at a time when the majority of South African companies from financial services to retailers, to miners look to Africa to grow their earnings potential.

Africa’s middle class is set to grow impressively in the next couple of years and the continent has some of the fastest- growing economies in the world due to oil and natural gas discoveries.

Its planned African expansion pits Foschini against its South African peers like Truworths International, Massmart Carrefour, Truworths International and Shoprite.

According to BDLive, Foschini is set to launch five to six shops in Zambia and four in West Africa’s Ghana in the near future.

BDLive quoted Ronnie Stein, Foschini CFO, as saying the company will have launched 42 new shops throughout Africa by 2015 and 38 by the following year.

Extra shops are set to be opened in Nigeria where the company already has two stores.

The prospect of increasing the company’s earnings power is great in Nigeria because a number of shopping malls are being erected there to cater for the 170 million-strong population.

“That will take us to 205 stores by the end of 2016 when our turnover from the rest of Africa will be R1bn,” Stein told BDLive.

“We always start with two stores in a country. Once we’re happy with the environment, the logistics, the legal side, the tax side, the staffing side, then we roll out.”