Kinshasa The low-loaders are piling up in front of the weighing stations and customs controls, and the air smells of soot. Their cargo is wrapped in tarpaulins and held together by thick ropes: they are solid plates of copper. The metal is mined in the mining town of Kolwezi in the west of the Congolese copper belt and some of it is also smelted there. The goods first reach the Tanzanian or South African coast via Lubumbashi, the capital of the mining province of Katanga – and then to China.
The economic superpower in the Far East is investing billions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A worthwhile business, because the Central African country is a commodity giant. Among other things, it has 73 percent of the world’s cobalt deposits, a heavy metal whose demand is increasing sharply due to the electric car boom.
But while China has built railroads, roads, hospitals and homes in exchange for mining concessions over the past few decades, many Western companies have pulled out. Europe and the USA were deterred by the devastating state of the country: it is hopelessly corrupt, the human rights situation is desolate and the political system is unpredictable.
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Today, Congo – formerly Zaire – is a rugged country of 91 million people, where scores of militias are struggling with their foreign supporters to seize as much land and mineral resources as possible. They move in an eternal cycle: the clans finance their brutal battles with the proceeds from the raw materials they have previously conquered.
But despite all the chaos: Now that Europe is desperately looking for alternatives to Russian raw material imports, prices on the world markets are rising massively and car companies are pushing electromobility, greed is growing. Some of the European companies that left the Congo years ago in frustration are planning to return.
Influential Chinese businessman Simon Cong cannot hide his skepticism at this renewed interest. Cong, who came to the Congo three decades ago as a translator and is one of the most intimate connoisseurs of the Congolese economy, points to the weak starting position of the Europeans. “While many Western companies are still ill-equipped for the tough terrain, the Chinese have massively pushed their interests in the country’s resource-rich regions,” says Cong.
From this building, the empire of the group is controlled – including the industrial activities in the Congo.
(Photo: obs)
Unlike the Europeans, Beijing was in no way deterred by the lack of democratic structures. On the contrary, it points out that the population will benefit from the development of the infrastructure. The federal government, on the other hand, complains that the “multinational mining companies active there have so far only created a few jobs”. And local companies still lack access to international markets.
China’s government and corporations, on the other hand, paint a more optimistic picture. Beijing has just presented the mining group China Nonferrous Metal Mining (CNMC) with the “Special Award for Business Performance”. Since entering the Congo market in 2004, CNMC has invested $1.5 billion in copper and cobalt exploration.
The group opened three mines and installed numerous systems in 28 construction projects. “CNMC built a model bridge of friendship between China and the Democratic Republic of Congo,” enthused China’s Ambassador to Congo Zhu Ji at the awards ceremony last week.
For CNMC, the Congo is a treasure trove. While the country’s copper exports amounted to 1.8 million tons last year, ranking third in the world after Chile and Peru, it was 125,000 tons of cobalt, which is important for e-car production. And that makes Congo the world market leader.
Demonstrators clashed with police officers during a protest against the United Nations peacekeeping force and vandalized the UN mission’s headquarters in the east of the country.
(Photo: dpa)
The Congo is also a leader in coltan; 80 percent of global funding comes from the Congo. The ore and its metallic elements niobium and tantalum are found in all computers and mobile phones, and tantalum is also gaining in importance in medical technology.
And then there are large deposits of methane, gold, diamonds, uranium and oil. There, where Chinese corporations do not satisfy their own hunger for raw materials with modern plants, the mineral resources are extracted with archaic means. Ecological catastrophes occur again and again, and tens of thousands of miners poison themselves with heavy metals and other toxic substances.
Under these conditions, will the West be able to catch up? The German Chamber of Commerce and Industry for Southern Africa speaks openly of a “difficult investment location”. According to the “Guide for German companies”, which the chamber is developing together with the German Society for International Cooperation (giz) and the “Germany Trade & Invest” initiative, companies should “bring Africa experience, time, money and a certain willingness to take risks” with them. released. It expressly warns against the unpredictability of the political framework: “Exuberance about the country’s huge potential is not appropriate.”
The working conditions of the miners in the Congo are often catastrophic. Tens of thousands poison themselves with heavy metals and other toxic substances.
(Photo: dpa)
While Moscow is doing billions in arms deals in the warlike Congo and Beijing is making use of raw materials, German companies know that they must not ignore the ethical dimension of their commitment. They are also reminded of this by the Supply Chain Act, which will regulate their obligations in terms of human rights and the environment from January 1, 2023.
Not all companies like that. It is said that they are given a responsibility that a state can at best guarantee itself. Many companies in China or Russia have already experienced how difficult it is to enforce human rights.
This is exactly where the CSU-affiliated Hanns Seidel Foundation sees a new starting point for their work on site. The foundation has recently expanded its decades-long presence in the capital Kinshasa and opened a project office in Lubumbashi two years ago.
With over 30 years of expertise in the field of agroforestry, the Seidel Foundation now has extensive experience in the sustainable reforestation of fallow land and combating climate change. Malte Liewerscheidt, head of the Seidel Foundation in Kinshasa, writes in the study “New Opportunities for the Mining Sector” that this offers a lot of potential for use in the elimination of environmental damage caused by mining in the south-east of the country.
To that end, the new office hopes to work with mining companies to clean up the environmental damage they are causing. “The economic importance of the Katanga region and its copper belt is enormous,” says Konstantin Wittek, who heads the foundation’s office in Lubumbashi. “We want to accompany the new supply chain laws in cooperation with the local mining companies through reforestation programs and at the same time supply German industry with green raw materials.”
At the moment, however, the raw materials that are the focus of interest in Congo are anything but green. Energy Minister Didier Budimbu wants to drill for oil and gas in the rainforest, and drilling rights have just been auctioned off in 30 exploration areas. Environmentalists are appalled. Aisles in the natural landscape, oil-contaminated soil in ecologically sensitive regions – Greenpeace Africa fears the worst for the second largest tropical rainforest on earth after Amazonia.
But the project, which will bring in foreign currency, seems to be almost impossible to avert, especially since a 1,400-kilometer-long crude oil pipeline to the Indian Ocean is to be built in Congo’s neighboring countries of Uganda and Tanzania. Behind this project is a large potential investor and buyer: China.
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