Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2665 actions· ✨ 90 recent

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.

On 22-23 February 2026, President Félix Tshisekedi signed and publicly read on RTNC (state television) a series of presidential ordinances replacing the entire leadership of three strategic state-owned mining companies: Gécamines (copper/cobalt), SAKIMA (Société Aurifère du Kivu et du Maniema — eastern DRC 3T minerals and gold), and SOKIMO (Société Minière de Kilomoto — Kilo-Moto gold sites). New appointees include Baraka Kabemba as DG of Gécamines, Guy Robert Lukama as DG of SAKIMA, and Yannick Nzonde Mulundu as DG of SOKIMO. The sweeping governance reshuffle came approximately two months after the December 4, 2025 DRC-US Strategic Partnership Agreement on Trade and Investment, signalling a strategic repositioning of DRC state mining apparatus toward a US-aligned critical-minerals framework.

Signed on 11 February 2026 at Mining Indaba (Cape Town) in the presence of DRC Minister of Mines Louis Watum Kabamba, the MoU grants Entreprise Générale du Cobalt (EGC — the DRC state cobalt monopsony) mining rights over an ERG Africa-owned exploitation area in Lualaba Province to pilot a structured artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) formalisation model covering organised cooperatives, designated ASM zones, controlled buying points, and compliance with safety and labour standards. EGC provides operational leadership and ERG Africa acts as enabling partner; ARECOMS, SEAMAPE, CEEC, and Gécamines provide regulatory and certification support, with GIZ as technical partner. The MoU is the primary public-private implementation vehicle for the December 2025 artisanal processing suspension (`2025-12-19-drc-artisanal-copper-cobalt-processing-suspension`), establishing the re-entry channel through which ASM cobalt supply re-enters formal supply chains under EGC monopsony control.

Arrêté ministériel n° 00964/CAB.MIN/MINES/01/2025, signed 19 December 2025 by DRC Mines Minister Louis Watum Kabamba, suspends with immediate effect all activities of entities (notably comptoirs d'achat / buying counters, treatment units and similar structures) involved in the purchase, processing, transformation and commercialisation of copper and cobalt minerals sourced from artisanal exploitation across the country. Industrial, legally established mining operators are excluded. The order requires affected entities to submit compliance documentation within ten days, establishes an ad hoc commission to verify administrative, legal, technical and traceability conformity (15-day review window), and obliges operators to demonstrate the lawful origin of their supplies in line with OECD due-diligence guidance. Framed as a "conservatory" measure to restore order in the cupro-cobaltifère value chain and curb illicit exports.

The DRC Council of Ministers adopted the projet de décret establishing the Fonds d'Investissement Stratégique de la République Démocratique du Congo (FIS-RDC) at its 54th ordinary session on 15 August 2025, under Finance Minister Doudou Fwamba. Presidential ordinances dated 28 February 2026 appointed a five-member Board of Directors, making the fund operational. The FIS-RDC is a state-directed sovereign vehicle mandated to capture revenues from extractive industries — principally copper, cobalt, coltan, and petroleum — and channel them into strategic national development projects including infrastructure, energy, agriculture, and economic diversification, while valorising state assets and attracting private and institutional co-investors.

On 27 January 2018 the DRC National Assembly adopted Loi n° 18/001, comprehensively amending the foundational 2002 Mining Code (Loi n° 007/2002); President Joseph Kabila promulgated the law on 9 March 2018, published in the Journal Officiel special issue of 28 March 2018, with implementing Décret n° 18/024 (Règlement Minier) following on 8 June 2018. The Code introduces a 10% royalty on minerals designated "strategic" by the Council of Ministers — cobalt, coltan, lithium, and germanium confirmed — up from the 2% standard non-ferrous rate, and raises all standard mining royalties (non-ferrous 2→3.5%, precious metals 2.5→3.5%, precious stones 4→6%). The state's mandatory free-carry interest in new mining projects is doubled from 5% to 10% (Article 71), with a further 10% paid-carry option creating an effective 20% state-participation floor; contract-stability guarantees are simultaneously curtailed from 10 to 5 years (Article 276), explicitly invalidating pre-existing stabilisation clauses. As the foundational statute governing every DRC mining-rights grant, royalty-rate setting, and export-control delegation, the 2018 Code is the parent authority for ARECOMS (established 2019 under its strategic-minerals framework) and the legal basis for both the 2025 cobalt export-ban/quota regime and the 2025 artisanal-processing suspension — making it the mandatory upstream context for the entire filed DRC action cluster.