Reuters reported that Congo's lofty expansion plans for copper output risk remaining on paper as a Chinese infrastructure deal has yet to fall into place and the government struggles to secure partnerships with mining firms to revamp railways and power stations.

Kinshasa has revived mining since the end of a devastating civil war, expanding copper output fivefold but is still operating well below its massive potential from some of the world's biggest mineral reserves. It wants to re launch state miner Gecamines and jolt partners into greater output from their own projects with a warning they must use it or lose it.

But firms in Congo's copper rich south face transport and power woes along with a proposed audit of many copper JV which has deepened worries over contractual certainty and fiscal harassment in the face of a looming election.

Mr Andy Davidson at Numis Securities said that "Congo is always going to be a peripheral country until they develop the infrastructure and derisk the political situation. It is a frontier territory, so if the world needs x million more tonnes of copper it is going to have to come from places like the DRC, but if the demand picture changes and copper price goes down then it will be the first place companies axe in their development priorities."

Mr Davidson said that the former Belgian colony has vast, largely untapped reserves of copper, cobalt and gold, but industrial mining has been crippled by decades of neglect corruption and conflict. Congo's copper output, decimated in the 1980s, has risen from 96,000 tonnes in 2007 to a projected 500,000 tonnes this year mainly through a series of joint ventures. The country is hoping for another 60% increase by 2015.

(Sourced from Reuters)