In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the government is trying to diversify the fragile economy, which mainly depends on the mining sector. To do this, the Congolese Prime Minister, Sylvestre Ilunga Ilunkamba, on Wednesday launched the country’s first pilot “special economic zone” in the suburbs of the capital Kinshasa.
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Eventually, 240 of the planned 800 acres were to be developed to accommodate industrial and other businesses. Particularity: these geographical areas are fiscally advantageous, which should allow the country to attract foreign investors and create local jobs.
“Operating phase”
“The stage where we are is the operational stage, that is to say, the Prime Minister who signed the decree from the area officially gives this place to say, Mr Developer, who had been recruited by the World Bank, here is the place for to develop it, to make it viable, so that companies will settle there, ”explains Julien Paluku, the Congolese Minister of Industry to our correspondent, Pascal Mulegwa.
3,500 jobs
And the Minister to specify the benefits that the companies will have on site: “All factories that will be installed there are exempt from export. That is, you produce here, you export to zero francs, to zero dollars. You import all the material at zero francs to zero dollars. The advantage is that with the activity created within the zone, these companies buy the raw materials on Congolese territory. This will further increase the activity of the Congolese economy so that everyone can sell what they produce in the particular economic zone. And this is where the DRC wins. It’s actually a new experience that has had success elsewhere, and the President of the Republic has created 6 industrial spaces. We start with the Kinshasa area and we already have requests from developers who want to settle in these areas so that things can move everywhere. ”
The government estimates at 3,500 the number of direct jobs that this first zone will create.
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