The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has signed a $1.9bn deal with a state mining company in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to develop at least four mines in the African country’s turbulent east.
Key points
- The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), about the size of Western Europe, is the largest country in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).
- DRC is endowed with exceptional natural resources, including minerals such as cobalt and copper, hydropower potential, significant arable land, immense biodiversity, and the world’s second-largest rainforest after the Amazon.
- State-owned Sakima has mining concessions for tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold in that part of the DRC.
- The DRC has substantial untapped gold, cobalt, and high-grade copper reserves, but equally significant security risks accentuated by a lack of robust infrastructure.
- Cobalt, one of the key metals to produce electric vehicles, places the DRC in a strategic position for the energy transition. In 2020, the DRC was the world’s largest cobalt miner with a production of 95,000 tons, or nearly 41% of the world’s cobalt.
- The Congo rainforest is spread across Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon. Sixty per cent of the rainforest lies in the DRC.
