Democratic Republic of Congo is \u200cpreparing a one-stop agency for major mining investments as part of reforms linked to its minerals partnership with the US, aiming to cut red tape and attract more Western capital into a sector dominated by Chinese companies, \u200bfour sources told Reuters.<\/p>\n
Congo, the world’s largest cobalt producer and second-largest copper producer, is at the centre \u200bof competition among global powers seeking supplies of critical minerals vital to \u2060the energy transition and advanced manufacturing.<\/p>\n
China, the US and the European Union have all signed minerals \u200bagreements with Kinshasa to secure access to its vast resources.<\/p>\n
The US deal has already delivered a Washington-backed \u200bmining investment through Virtus Minerals and helped boost Congolese copper sales to US and Europe.<\/p>\n
ONE-STOP AGENCY<\/strong><\/p>\n The planned agency would be open to Chinese and other foreign investors as well as US and European firms, according to two government officials, \u200ba diplomat and a mining analyst.<\/p>\n The sources declined to be named because they were not \u200bauthorised to speak publicly.<\/p>\n Congo’s mines and finance ministries did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n The reform, led by the \u200cfinance \u2060and economy ministries, would centralise company registration, licensing, taxation and compliance for major mining investments, reducing approval processes that can currently take months, said the government sources and the analyst.<\/p>\n One government official said the agency would initially focus on joint-venture projects worth more than $1 billion that operate under special \u200bfiscal regimes, citing the \u200bChinese-controlled Sicomines copper and \u2060cobalt venture as an example.<\/p>\n The official added that legislation establishing the agency still requires promulgation.<\/p>\n “The one-stop shop is intended to cut through the bureaucratic \u200bsilos that have long complicated mining investment in Congo,” said Eric Ndeh, \u200binternational director \u2060of civil society group Afrewatch. The agency is meant to be operational this year, Ndeh added.<\/p>\n Congo has repeatedly said its drive to attract more Western investment is not intended to replace China but to \u2060diversify \u200bsources of funding and export markets.<\/p>\n “The paradox is that a \u200breform partly driven by the US-DRC minerals partnership could ultimately make it easier for Chinese, European and American investors alike \u200bto do business,” Ndeh said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Democratic Republic of Congo is \u200cpreparing a one-stop agency for major mining investments as part of reforms linked to its minerals partnership with the US, aiming to cut red tape and attract more Western capital into a sector dominated by Chinese companies, \u200bfour sources told Reuters. Congo, the world’s largest cobalt producer and second-largest copper […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":11722,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"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":"Reuters","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":[28,29,2362,3028],"tags":[3016,5479],"class_list":["post-22066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-mining","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo-drc","tag-us-deal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22066","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\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22066"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22067,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22066\/revisions\/22067"}],"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=22066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}