COBALT-RICH CONGO TRIES TO PUSH INTO BATTERY OUTPUT

Democratic Republic of Congo’s government said on Wednesday it would push to develop domestic battery manufacturing capacity to add value to its exports of minerals such as cobalt and copper. Congo mines around two-thirds of the world’s cobalt, an ingredient in lithium-ion batteries, and is Africa’s leading producer of copper. But Congo, which ranks among the world’s least developed countries, exports its minerals for only a fraction of the final cost of the batteries, which are mostly manufactured in Asia. Speaking at a business forum in the capital Kinshasa, Prime Minister Sama Lukonde announced a series of measures aimed at speeding the development of a Battery Council with the aim of “piloting the government’s policy to develop a regional value chain around the electric battery industry.”