The Democratic Republic of Congo has resumed cobalt exports\u00a0after a 10-month halt, the country\u2019s finance minister said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Introduced in February, the ban was initially imposed for four months. It was designed to stabilise the market and stem falling prices due to global oversupply, the government said at the time.<\/p>\n
“Since Friday, the Democratic Republic of Congo has resumed exporting its cobalt,” Finance Minister Doudou Fwamba told reporters in a press conference..<\/p>\n
The DRC is by far the world\u2019s leading cobalt producer. It was responsible for 76% of the global cobalt production in 2024, or about 220,000 tons, according to the US Geological Survey.<\/p>\n
The metal is\u00a0essential to produce lithium-ion batteries, including those used in smartphones and electric cars.<\/p>\n
Fwamba said the 10-month export suspension had aimed to ensure\u00a0“national sovereignty over raw materials.”<\/p>\n
“How can we be the number-one supplier of 70% of this strategic product yet not influence price formation? We refused to accept that,”\u00a0Fwamba said.<\/p>\n
He explained that Congo had\u00a0\u201clost fiscal revenue due to the systematic decline in cobalt prices.\u201d<\/p>\n
This was especially due to\u00a0China’s extenstive cobalt mining activity in the DRC.\u00a0Chinese mining company CMOC operates Tenke Fungurume and Kisanfu, two of the world’s largest mines.<\/p>\n
Fwamba said the government’s strategy was successful, with cobalt prices rising from$22,000 per ton to $54,000 or $55,000.<\/p>\n
Cobalt is mainly extracted from mines\u00a0in the southeastern province of Katanga.\u00a0The region, which is considered vital to Kinshasa’s economy and strategy, has for now been mostly spared from the relentless violence raging in the North Kivu and South Kivu provinces, largely under M23 control.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Democratic Republic of Congo has resumed cobalt exports\u00a0after a 10-month halt, the country\u2019s finance minister said on Tuesday. Introduced in February, the ban was initially imposed for four months. It was designed to stabilise the market and stem falling prices due to global oversupply, the government said at the time. “Since Friday, the Democratic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11722,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"African News","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,3028,1129],"tags":[3016],"class_list":["post-19003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-mining","category-security","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo-drc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19003"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19005,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19003\/revisions\/19005"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}