Copper runs 16 per cent ahead of 2022 while ports, phones and flour stay flat.

By Kanisa Magazine · September 2023

Eight months into 2023, the Banque Centrale du Congo’s provisional output figures describe two economies that share a border and little else. Copper stands at 1,847,343 tonnes for January to August, a pace about 16 per cent above 2022, while port handling, mobile-phone traffic and wheat flour run flat or only slightly ahead.

The digest of 27 September is therefore a useful corrective to the mining headline. Growth is real, and it is concentrated in a sector that employs few people relative to its output. The rest of the economy is moving, but in single digits and unevenly.

What the mines add

Copper’s pace picked up through the summer, and the state’s own production is a sliver.

Copper output for the eight months was 521,234 tonnes above the cumulative June figure, so July and August together ran at about 260,600 tonnes a month. The Ministry of Mines figures carried by Copperbelt Katanga Mining show 555,218 tonnes exported from first-quarter output of 595,143 tonnes, so most of what is mined leaves the country quickly. Gécamines’ own output was 3,534 tonnes for the eight months, under 0.2 per cent of the total; partners produced 1,843,809 tonnes.

Cobalt, at 60,972 tonnes, runs about a fifth below its 2022 pace, and diamonds at 4.9 million carats run at roughly half. The mining line is a copper story, not a mining-wide boom.

What farms and forests add

Cocoa and coffee exports are ahead of last year; palm oil is level; and log output has jumped.

Cocoa exports of 25,732 tonnes in eight months annualise to about 38,600 tonnes against 32,505 in 2022, a gain near 19 per cent. Coffee, at 8,029 tonnes, annualises to about 12,000 tonnes against 10,729, up 12 per cent. Palm oil exports of 33,772 tonnes annualise to the same 50,658 tonnes recorded for 2022. Logs show 177,347 cubic metres against 109,851 for all of 2022, a jump the BCC does not explain and that should be read with caution.

The farm lines give non-mining exports a small push, but their volumes are a fraction of copper’s, and their value depends on world prices, and the same digest shows cocoa in New York up from US$2,592 to US$3,583 a tonne since December while arabica and palm oil are lower.

What households and ports show

Mobile traffic is flat, ports are down about five per cent, and beer is up three per cent.

Telephone traffic of 10,634 million minutes for the eight months annualises to roughly 15,950 million, level with the 15,973 million of 2022. Port handling at Kinshasa, Matadi and Boma is 1,237 thousand tonnes, a pace near 1.86 million against 1.94 million, a decline of 4.6 per cent. Alcoholic drinks, at 4,175 thousand hectolitres, run about 3 per cent ahead, and soft drinks about 2.5 per cent. Electricity, at 9,020 thousand megawatt-hours, runs 1.9 per cent ahead.

Port handling is the notable weak line. If imports and mining inputs were rising with copper, tonnage through the three ports would be rising too.

The employment line the digest does not carry

With no labour series in the digest, phone traffic and beer are the nearest proxies, and both are flat.

The BCC does not publish an employment count in the weekly digest, so the closest evidence of household earnings is consumption. The IMF’s Executive Board, which released about US$203 million on 28 June, has framed the programme around budget discipline and reserves rather than jobs. The BCC’s own growth table carries 6.6 per cent for 2023, with the population entered at the 2022 level, so no one reading it can see how many more people share the gains.

At its September meeting the Monetary Policy Committee described the macroeconomic framework as relatively stable, which may be true for the currency and be a poor description of the household.

What it means for a growth strategy

Back suppliers to copper and cocoa; do not assume the mining boom will lift mass consumer volumes this year.

Three decisions follow. A distributor should expect drinks, flour and telecoms to grow by less than three per cent in volume, and compete on margin rather than expansion. A logistics firm should treat port tonnage as the early warning of imports and mining inputs, and look at inland haulage along the Copperbelt where the copper growth is. An investor looking at non-mining exports has two commodities, cocoa and coffee, with volume growth and one, palm oil, without.