- Democratic Republic of Congo’s government 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. Demand for the minerals is rising to power electric vehicles and electronic devices.
- But Congo exports its minerals for only a fraction of the final cost of the batteries, which are mostly manufactured in Asia.
