The Democratic Republic of Congo anticipates a 20% decline in mining revenue following project delays and lower mineral prices occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic, Mines Minister Willy Kitobo Samsoni said.
A Bloomberg report says mining companies in the country have had to delay construction of new production facilities aimed at complying with upcoming restrictions on the export of copper and cobalt concentrates.
“Almost all these projects have been postponed until next year,” he said. “In the short term we’ve lost certain projects that should have finished and given us a little more production,” Bloomberg quotes Kitobo.
The DR Congo is the world’s largest producer of cobalt and is also Africa’s biggest exporter of copper.
The mines ministry said in February that by mid-2020 it would begin enforcing rules that prohibited exports of mineral concentrates in order to add more value to Congo’s mineral shipments by refining them in-country.
Kitobo however noted that despite the decline in mining revenues, the production of copper and cobalt has not been greatly affected by the pandemic.
The Bloomberg report says the DR Congo government is considering considering tax breaks and may try to help miners who need to declare force majeure because of the impact of the virus.
