Chinese firms start work on DRC road projects under renegotiated mining deal

Chinese companies have broken ground on three major road projects linking resource-rich regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with its capital Kinshasa as part of a renegotiated minerals-for-infrastructure deal.

Work began last month on a US$300 million ring road in Kinshasa - a 63km (39-mile) project connecting the southwest and southeast ring roads to ease traffic congestion in the city.

It came just a few months after Sinohydro Corporation and China Railway Group agreed to invest up to US$7 billion in infrastructure as part of a revised agreement on the Sicomines copper and cobalt joint venture.

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A statement from President Felix Tshisekedi's office after the groundbreaking ceremony said the Kinshasa ring road was made possible because of the renegotiated deal.

Tshisekedi has pushed for an overhaul of mining contracts he said had been "poorly negotiated" under his predecessor Joseph Kabila, and raised the issue when he visited China last year.

President Felix Tshisekedi has pushed to renegotiate mining contracts. Photo: AP alt=President Felix Tshisekedi has pushed to renegotiate mining contracts. Photo: AP>

The Chinese firms had previously agreed to invest US$3 billion in infrastructure, funded from the mine's revenue, and another US$3 billion to develop a copper and cobalt mine, in exchange for a 68 per cent stake in the joint venture - called Sicomines - with state-owned Congolese company Gecamines.

Under the new deal, the companies agreed to increase their spending on infrastructure from US$3 billion to US$7 billion.

The ring road project will cross four communities of Kinshasa - home to more than 17 million people - and is expected to take three years to complete. It is a priority infrastructure project under the renegotiated deal.

"Where a road goes, development follows," Du Xiaohui, the Chinese foreign ministry's director general of African affairs, wrote on X, referring to the road projects being built by Chinese firms.

Zhao Bin, China's ambassador to the DRC, said at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Kinshasa project that other works would be launched by Chinese firms in coming months. He said the ring road was "a road to prosperity for the Congo and the Congolese people".

"As the first project of the new phase of Sino-Congolese cooperation 'resources for projects', I am confident that it will become a new landmark of Kinshasa and a new symbol of Sino-Congolese cooperation in infrastructure," Zhao said.

He said the renegotiated deal would "inject new impetus into this win-win cooperation by improving the content of the said agreement".

Alexis Gisaro Muvuni, the DRC's state minister for infrastructure and public works, at the launch of the project in Nguba, Lualaba province. Photo: Xinhua alt=Alexis Gisaro Muvuni, the DRC's state minister for infrastructure and public works, at the launch of the project in Nguba, Lualaba province. Photo: Xinhua>

Another groundbreaking ceremony was held earlier this month in the village of Nguba, in the southeastern province of Lualaba, for a second project under the deal - an upgrade of the Mbuji Mayi-Nguba Road. The 900km road is part of the N1 National Road linking Kinshasa and Lubumbashi, the DRC's mining capital.

China Railway Engineering Corporation on July 23 said work had begun on the project - to widen and upgrade the road from dirt to asphalt - and it would improve logistics between the two cities.

Construction also started on a third project in early July - an upgrade of the 230km Kananga-Kalamba Mbuji Road that goes to the border with Angola. The road is expected to be used to transport mineral resources to the ports.

Christian-Geraud Neema, Africa editor at the China Global South Project and a non-resident scholar at Carnegie Endowment, said the projects were part of the revised Sicomines contract signed earlier this year.

Neema said that under the deal, the joint venture would disburse US$324 million a year to finance these infrastructure projects. He said in 2024, the first year of the revised deal, the DRC would receive some US$650 million so "we should expect a lot of projects popping up around the country".

"The DRC government is looking forward to these projects to demonstrate its success in renegotiating this contract," Neema said. "Sicomines is also communicating on that, showing how it's abiding by the terms of the agreement and how they're DRC's partner in achieving success."

But he said it was too early to say if the projects would actually be completed, or when. "For President Tshisekedi, starting is good enough PR content for himself and his regime," Neema added.

State-owned Congolese mining company Gecamines formed the Sicomines joint venture in 2008 - with a consortium of Chinese firms led by Sinohydro and China Railway Group - to trade copper and cobalt for infrastructure such as roads and hospitals.

The DRC supplies more than 60 per cent of China's cobalt - a key component in batteries for electric vehicles and electronics - making it a key player in the Chinese transition to green energy.

Neema said the minerals-for-infrastructure model could be improved with better governance and by addressing the information asymmetry around the real value of the minerals versus what the country gets in exchange.

Resource-backed deals have been criticised by African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina as "asymmetrical" and "non-transparent".

"I think it's time for us to have debt transparency accountability and make sure that this whole thing of these opaque natural resource-backed loans actually ends, because it complicates the debt issue and the debt resolution issue," Adesina said in April.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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