Congo pushes back against U.S. pressure on critical minerals {Business Africa}

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Congo pushes back against U.S. pressure on critical minerals {Business Africa}  Congo Resists U.S. Push for Minerals, Demands Local Value and Development in Global Clean Energy Race while  Tunisian Biotech Startup Turns 5,000 Tonnes of Invasive Blue Crab Waste into Sustainable, Pharmaceutical-Grade Chitosan.  READ MORE : http://www.africanews.com/2025/10/02/congo-pushes-back-against-us-pressure-on-critical-minerals-business-africa  Subscribe on our Dailymotion channel and receive all the latest news from the continent.    Africanews is available in English and French.  Website : www.africanews.com  Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/africanews.channel/  Twitter : https://twitter.com/africanews

Transcript

00:00welcome to another edition of business africa i'm your host afolake will we the top stories

00:10this week congo resists u.s push for minerals demands local value and development in global

00:16green energy freeze tunisian biotech startup turns 5 000 tons of invasive blue crab waste

00:24into sustainable pharmaceutical grade kytosan africa embraces sustainable fertilization to boost

00:32yield safeguard soils and harness the potential of its vast untapped farmland the democratic republic

00:41of congo home to most of the world's cobalt has become the epicenter of a global tug of war for

00:47critical minerals as the u.s crabbles to secure supplies for clean energy while kinshasa insist

00:54it won't auction its resources without guarantees of local benefit have a look the united states is

01:03facing a growing critical minerals crisis demand for cobalt copper and lithium needed for electric

01:09vehicles and clean energy is soaring yet washington relies heavily on imports from china which recently

01:15imposed stringent export restrictions in response to u.s tariff increases on chinese products

01:22africa home to nearly a third of the world's critical mineral reserves has been singled out as

01:27part of the solution the democratic republic of congo which produces more than 70 percent of the

01:34world's cobalt is at the heart of this debate earlier this year kinshasa considered a minerals deal

01:39with washington as part of a wider arrangement to boost security and counter the perceived threat from

01:44neighboring rwanda but president felix chichigedi has now drawn a red line he says congo will not

01:51auction its resources to the u.s or any other partner instead kinshasa is pushing for strategic

01:57partnerships that prioritize local value addition infrastructure investment and community development

02:03while managing challenges such as insecurity and illicit trade in the east

02:07with the world's clean energy future at stake congo now sits at the center of a global minerals chess

02:16board the question is how can it transform this mineral wealth into lasting national prosperity without

02:23repeating the mistakes of the past

02:28to discuss this findings mr jimpy landry a partner in illusions consulting joins us from kinshasa thank you for

02:35joining us on the show now in talks with the us what should congo prioritize in mineral deals the first

02:42thing is we need to push for more local value addition not just raw or export but um initiatives like

02:50the zambia drc battery council initiatives that aims to build a regional battery value chain should be

02:56pushed more we should be pushing for more of this kind of initiatives the second thing that we need to

03:02look at is infrastructure investment or even co-investments so you know mining can't go without

03:08logistics and without energy so um the deal should integrate uh logistics and energy infrastructure

03:15updates and the top thing which is not the least among them is to have to make sure that all our

03:22partners be them us or anyone align with our uh esg agenda so we need to make sure that we turn we

03:32leverage these partnerships to help to make sure that our partners help us to have a better local

03:40wealth creation for the communities around the mining sites that are being explored how can president

03:47chisa kedi allow foreign investment while keeping control over congos minerals and profits so i think

03:54part of the hundreds of millions of dollars being collected on the yearly basis on mining royalties

04:00could be used to fund exploration to help the government have a better knowledge of what is on the

04:06underneath our feet and give them leverage to go beyond the 20 that is being imposed for new

04:13projects by the 2018 mining code in the rc so having a better knowledge of our subsoil can give us that

04:20leverage to have more equity but then that brings me to the second point or the second layer i think which

04:27is more like today we have 10 to 20 ownership in mining projects but then we shouldn't just go for

04:34this minority equity we should also look for governance positions we need to have a significant

04:40position as per governance which means the state should make sure that we retain a certain level of

04:45board control board level control veto rights on some strategic decisions but also having royalties being

04:52indexed to global prices and i think what can be the third layer to this is more around ring fencing

04:59downstream production because today there is kind of opaque practices as per pricing transfer pricing is

05:06concerned so most of the operators here subsidiaries of international companies and then they leverage that

05:13to reduce the royalties they can pay in drc so we definitely need to make sure that is a certain level

05:21percentage of annual production is being processed locally or being sold through congolese run

05:29trading platforms how will global competition from china the us and other countries affect congo's

05:36mineral negotiations so this rivalry creates um negotiating leverage but it also reduces it fragments

05:44the risk when you have just one or two key partners so i think the best move for drc if the country feels

05:52like it is very difficult for them to negotiate just themselves i think what they can do is they can form

05:57uh strategic alliances uh multi-country strategic alliances like with people like zambia or even namibia that are

06:04both corporate producers to help them negotiate collectively be it for infrastructure or everything else the second thing is

06:12there is a need to diversify the buyers of the refined uh output and then there is also a need to

06:18i think develop or even build i would say local consortiums that can co-invest with international

06:25players so i mean as a demand for copper and copper intensifies uh drc must be thinking more like a

06:33strategic player or i might even say a central bank of critical minerals and not just the host country of the

06:39critical minerals mr jimpy thank you so much for your time bye on tunisia's mediterranean coast two

06:47innovators are turning an ecological menace into biotech opportunity transforming the country's invasive

06:54blue crab waste into high-value cytosine that could replace plastics in agriculture medicine and industry

07:02tunisian company kittelix is a biotechnology firm of a special kind unlike most producers kittelix

07:08that's tunisia's 100 million dollars blue crab industry for discarded shells supplying eco-friendly

07:14kittosine to local innovators in attracting interest from european beauty brands in kittelix we transform

07:21this waste through a simple process of three steps deprotonization demurization to obtain

07:27kytin and then we do a distillation to obtain kytosan that is used in many industries

07:32the initiative transforms marine waste into therapeutic molecules in tunisia we saw that

07:41every year more than 5 000 tons of blue swimming crab byproduct are discarded causing damage to our

07:48costs and communities here in visit with our unit we are able to treat more than three tons every day

07:55kittelix is driving innovation through research on kittosan's medical and anti-microbial uses positioning

08:00tunisia as a green chemistry leader in the global south our research on biomolecules of natural origin

08:09aims to find new therapeutic approaches particularly against parkinson's disease this initiative makes

08:15it possible to valorize marine waste instead of discarding it by using it to extract molecules

08:20that can be used for therapeutic purposes kittelix produces kytosan with near zero pollution

08:28certified by tunisia's environment ministry and the university medal awards

08:34africa is betting on a new generation of sustainable fertilizers to boost yields without repeating europe's

08:40century-old mistakes of soil degradation and pollution a shift that could turn the continent's vast

08:47farmland into a global food powerhouse we have expert insights in the following reports

08:53more than a century ago europe's agricultural revolution was driven by chemical fertilizers

09:01but africa was left behind today fertilizer use across sub-saharan africa remains far below

09:07the global average experts warn it's too little to boost yields yet still enough to degrade soils

09:13uh... having a new generation of ecological fertilization uh... we don't have to

09:20follow the path of the west of one hundred twenty years because we know

09:24now that uh it leads to degraded soil it uh um it leads to uh collapsing biodiversity and polluted

09:34environments so we know now it's not the right way uh to follow not the right path to follow

09:40um especially now when we we try to be care about the planet and and the climate that's the mission of

09:47the nutri afro coalition working with biotech firm tikuna its nitrogen fixing solutions stimulates natural

09:55soil bacteria and fungi to capture nitrogen from the air boosting growth without chemicals as a

10:02consequence they grow faster they grow bigger uh they outperform uh when it comes to yield the chemical

10:09fertilization at least by 20 30 percent so you also collect much more biomass uh plants have

10:18much better quality the challenge is access high prices and poor distribution once doomed fertilizer

10:24campaigns nutri afro says its product matches chemical costs but performs better africa holds 60

10:32of the world's uncultivated arable land advocates believe that with sustainable fertilization the continent

10:38could secure its own food future and emerge as a global supplier of green-based bioproducts

10:48that brings us to the end of this edition of business africa thank you for watching

10:52for more business stories and the latest updates stay tuned to africanews or visit us online at africanews.com

10:59see you next time

11:04you

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