Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2670 actions· ✨ 89 recent

On 22 May 2026, DRC Minister of Mines Louis Watum Kabamba signed Arrêté ministériel N° 00305/CAB.MIN/MINES/01/2026, imposing an immediate and total three-month suspension of all mining activity (industrial, semi-industrial, and artisanal) in the Mwenga and Shabunda territories of South Kivu province. Grounds cited: illegal extraction, mineral fraud, and financing of armed groups through uncontrolled extraction revenues. The General Inspectorate of Mines was deployed on a special verification mission; the moratorium is set to expire approximately 22 August 2026.

President Félix Tshisekedi mandated a 30-day audit at the 87th Council of Ministers (April 24, 2026) to track DRC mining export revenues from shipment through foreign-currency repatriation to government receipt, targeting copper and cobalt — the country's two dominant export minerals. The directive responds to a systemic gap between record 2025 export volumes (~3.4 Mt copper, ~220 kt cobalt) and proportional state revenue collection, and builds on a prior audit that identified ~$16.8 billion in underreported revenues between 2018 and 2023. Initial findings are due no later than June 15, 2026, and enforcement exposure is concentrated on the major vertically integrated operators — Glencore, CMOC, and Ivanhoe Mines.

On March 29, 2026, the DRC Conseil des Ministres approved a draft decree modifying and supplementing Decree n°11/28 of June 7, 2021, which establishes the statute of the Centre d'Expertise, d'Evaluation et de Certification (CEEC). The reform formally enshrines CEEC as a "certification authority" recognized in law — a role previously exercised in practice but lacking explicit statutory grounding. CEEC gains explicit authority to determine the physicochemical characteristics of all mineral substances produced on DRC territory, covering the nature, chemical composition, geographic origin, and legal provenance of exports across all strategic minerals including cobalt, copper, coltan, cassiterite, gold, and tantalum.

The DRC government's APCSC formally launched a technical and financial audit of the Sicomines Sino-Congolese mining project on March 5, 2026, signing consortium contracts with ATF-PCSC/Mayer Brown (legal), Rothschild & Cie (financial valuation), EY (accounting and tax), and SRK Consulting (resource certification). The audit covers 16 years of project implementation (2008–2024), examining revenue flows, infrastructure delivery commitments, and compliance with the collaboration convention and its five amendments. The initiative signals DRC's intention to renegotiate or enforce Amendment 5 (2024) terms, which conditioned any further project expansion on audit outcomes and a certified feasibility study.