Congo plans special economic zone for minerals beneficiation

DRC president, Joseph Kabila

A SPECIAL economic zone for companies that manufacture goods from the country’s minerals is being planned by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to Bloomberg News citing the comments of the country’s president, Joseph Kabila.

“There is a need to create special economic zones for the final users of Congolese natural resources,” Kabila was quoted as saying. The area will allow producers of electric vehicles, smartphones and other goods to “install themselves in the DRC,” he said.

Kabila was speaking at a conference Wednesday in the southeastern city of Kolwezi, said the newswire service. It was at the same conference that Martin Kabwelulu, the DRC’s mines minister, dashed the hopes of mining companies betting on the central African country accepting concessions to its new Mining Code promulgated earlier this year.

“All that I would allow myself to say is to invite the different stakeholders, each following his own position, to commit themselves to implementing the measures of the revised mining law,” Bloomberg cited Kabwelulu to have said.