Council of Ministers: the Chinese contract will be revisited
The President of the Republic, Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo chaired, this Friday, March 17, 2023, the ninety-first meeting of the Council of Ministers.
Among the points discussed today, there is the Chinese contract.
This, in accordance with the report of the General Inspectorate of Finance which demonstrates, black on white, the open-air scam.
At the end of this investigation by the IGF, the President of the Republic will set the record straight and restore the country to its rights.
“There is an urgent need to revisit this convention for a rebalancing of the advantages in order to guarantee the interests of the country”, underlines the minutes of the council of ministers.
Recall that according to the IGF report, Sicomines has not fulfilled its part of the contract.
The Congolese state has been largely defrauded by this Chinese company.
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Mines: the European Union includes copper and nickel in the category of strategic materials
The Europeans have decided, for the first time, to include copper and nickel in the category of strategic materials.
Clearly, the European decision will make it possible, overall, to guarantee faster permits and even easier access to capital for investors interested in exploiting them.
To date, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has only identified cobalt, coltan and germanium as strategic minerals.
Far from seeming trivial, the decision of the European Union (EU) of March 16, to categorize nickel and copper as strategic materials, could move the lines in the DRC, a major copper producer, with reserves estimated at 75 million tons.
In addition, 95% of Congolese exports are raw materials, mainly copper and cobalt and 40% of these exports go to China.
In 2021, the country produced 1.9 million tons of copper. Nickel, for its part, is one of the 7 most requested metals in the DRC.
There is a short-term prospect for industrial production of nickel and lithium. 
However, the mineral substance is in partial exploitation in Kasaï Occidental, according to the national agency for the promotion of investments (ANAPI).
Faster access to permits
With the new categorization of copper and nickel as strategic materials, the benefits generally revolve around faster access to more simplified operating permits and capital available for the realization of large projects.
The other effect expected in the immediate future would be the better securing of supplies of these materials.
The finding that emerges is an expansion of the European list of strategic industrial metals.
According to an independent source, the EU is now going beyond its usual list, which once only targeted a few minerals like cobalt, lithium and rare earths.
The challenge of the global ecological transition is very strong in Europe and in other continents.
Copper and nickel are used for this purpose.
The former provides considerable support in renewable energy systems and electric vehicle wiring, while the latter is a major component of batteries for electric vehicles.
Keeping an eye on the exploitation of the two minerals
On a more political level, the EU's approach obviously allows it to keep an eye on the exploitation of the two minerals.
However, it should rub shoulders with the Chinese giant, which has greatly strengthened its presence in the mining sector in Africa.
As an expert from the Ministry of Mines explains, on condition of anonymity, the great difficulty for the DRC is to really take advantage of the situation.
Indeed, the Congo has several strategic minerals, but it is unable to process them locally.
We continue to export the concentrate, and that puts us in difficulty internationally.
However, strategic minerals are the most demanded in international trade in view of their position.
We see it with cobalt, for example, widely used in batteries.
It is therefore more interesting to export a finished product rather than an intermediate product on which we are forced to negotiate to earn money.
As a reminder, the DRC has declared three mineral substances as strategic: cobalt, coltan and germanium.
What they have in common is the ability of these products to significantly influence the behavior of the world market.
The three products are involved in the high-tech industrial sectors, information and communication technologies (ICT), renewable energies and in the military field.
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Of course the 20% would have to be free carried.
