Trade: SA urged to take opportunities in DRC

SOUTH African business must seize trade and investment opportunities in the mineral-rich Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as competition from other countries is likely to heat up, according to Mahlatse Mminele, the Lubumbashi-based consul-general of South Africa. “Opportunities for trade and investment that the DRC is teeming with will not last forever,” said Mminele on Wednesday. Mminele identified six focus areas in which South African and Congolese businesspeople could work together. These were food security, energy, education, health, infrastructure development and mining. “The DRC is the future breadbasket of Africa due to the huge potential that agriculture in the country possesses,” he said. The country had 8 million hectares of arable land that was unexploited. The fact that the DRC had 70 million people meant there was already an internal market that could be exploited. But paradoxically, 80 percent of what was consumed in the DRC was imported. In 2012 the country spent $1.2 billion (R13bn) on imports, a substantial percentage of which was food, Mminele added. – Staff Reporter