Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2663 actions· ✨ 89 recent

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.

DRC's Cadastre Minier (CAMI) granted KoBold Metals seven exclusive exploration permits covering approximately 1,600 km² in Tanganyika (four permits, Manono territory) and Haut-Lomami (three, Malemba Nkulu territory) provinces, valid for five years. The permits were issued August 27, 2025 following a July 2025 accord de principe between KoBold and the DRC Ministry of Mines; an official handover ceremony was held September 3, 2025, presided by Minister of Mines Louis Watum Kabamba. KoBold Metals — backed by Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Sam Altman — becomes the first US company to hold formal DRC lithium exploration rights over the Manono deposit, one of the world's largest confirmed hard-rock lithium resources (~400 Mt estimated), placing it in direct strategic competition with Chinese-backed Zijin/La Cominière whose rights over the same deposit are contested in ICSID arbitration by AVZ Minerals.

On 22 February 2025 the Authority for the Regulation and Control of Strategic Mineral Substance Markets (ARECOMS) of the Democratic Republic of the Congo issued Decision No. 001/ARECOMS/2025 imposing a four-month suspension of all cobalt exports — industrial and artisanal — in response to a multi-year cobalt price collapse driven by structural oversupply from CMOC's Tenke Fungurume and Kisanfu mines. The DRC accounts for roughly 70-76% of global mined cobalt, so the ban removed the dominant source of feedstock from the seaborne market. The ban was extended in late June 2025 by another three months, then on 10 October 2025 ARECOMS issued Decision No. 005/ARECOMS/2025 lifting the outright suspension and replacing it with a hard annual export quota: 18,125 t for the November-December 2025 transition window, then 96,600 t per year for 2026 and 2027. The annual ceiling consists of an 87,000 t "base quota" distributed pro-rata using each producer's January 2022 - December 2024 historical export volumes, plus a 9,600 t "strategic quota" allocated at ARECOMS' sole discretion to projects of national strategic importance. Allocations for Q4 2025 went disproportionately to the largest incumbents: CMOC received 6,500 t (Tenke Fungurume + Kisanfu), Glencore 3,925 t (Kamoto + Mutanda), and Eurasian Resources Group 2,125 t (Metalkol). CMOC's award is far below its ~115 kt 2024 production rate, structurally capping the world's top cobalt producer below 30% of its operating capacity. Exporters must obtain a Quota Verification Certificate (AVQ) from ARECOMS, submit to joint sampling, weighing, sealing and physical inspection by multiple government agencies, and prepay the 10% mining royalty within 48 hours of declaring origin and sale. ARECOMS reserves the right to revise quotas quarterly in case of "significant imbalance in the cobalt market," and explicitly retained discretion to re-set 2027 volumes. The measure is the EM resource-nationalism complement to Indonesia's nickel-ore ban template, applied to the single material where one country has the most concentrated global supply share.

On 12 February 2025, DRC Minister of Mines Kizito Pakabomba signed an arrêté classifying 38 mining concessions in Masisi (North Kivu) and Kalehe (South Kivu) territories as "red zones," imposing a total prohibition on artisanal extraction, transport, and commercialization of coltan (tantalite-columbite), cassiterite (tin ore), and wolframite (tungsten ore). The measure responded directly to the December 2024 UN Group of Experts report documenting that M23/AFC armed groups were controlling and taxing coltan extraction at Rubaya — at least 150 tonnes/month fraudulently exported to Rwanda and blended with legitimate Rwandan production, constituting what the UN described as the largest contamination ever recorded of mineral supply chains in the Great Lakes region. The initial six-month ban (12 February – 11 August 2025) was extended for a further six months by Minister Louis Watum Kabamba's prorogation arrêté of 3 November 2025 (retroactive from 12 August 2025). DRC accounts for approximately 60–70% of global tantalum mine supply; Rubaya alone is one of the world's highest-density artisanal coltan producing zones.