Yugoslav companies carried out construction of numerous major infrastructural and industrial projects in Africa, Europe and Asia. Many of these projects were carried out by Energoprojekt, a Yugoslav engineering and construction firm founded in 1951 to rebuild the country's war devastated infrastructure. By the early 1980s, Energoprojekt was the world's 16'th largest engineering and construction company, employing 7,000. The company carried out large construction projects in Libya, Kuwait, Zambia and Guinea, and by the late 1960s, the company was competing in European markets in West Germany, Czechoslovakia, and the German Democratic Republic. Many infrastructure projects in Africa and Asia were political deals, done for prestige reasons and included elements of foreign aid rather than being result of economic calculation and competition.