Copper holds its pace while cement, power and household demand lag, and the budget spends little on investment.

By Kanisa Magazine · August 2025

Congo’s mining headline in August 2025 is a growth rate of more than 12 per cent; the headline for everything else is about 3.5 per cent. The International Monetary Fund’s staff report puts 2024 growth in the extractive sector at 12.8 per cent and in the non-extractive economy at 3.5 per cent, and the central bank’s own estimate for 2025 growth is 4.7 per cent. A business selling to households and shops should plan on the second number, not the first.

The activity table in the BCC digest of 27 August lets us test that, though only for the first quarter. It shows copper at full speed and the household-facing tonnages, cement and electricity, running behind their 2024 pace.

Two economies in one table

Copper output holds its 2024 pace while cement and power run behind.

For the first quarter of 2025 the BCC records 785,841 tonnes of copper, which a straight-line reading turns into 3.14 million tonnes for the year against 3.10 million in 2024. Cement tells a different story: 561,843 tonnes in the quarter against 2.63 million tonnes in 2024, a run-rate of about 2.25 million, roughly 14 per cent lower. Electricity generation was 3,142 gigawatt-hours in the quarter, a run-rate of 12.6 terawatt-hours against 13.5 in 2024, and beverage output of 1.52 million hectolitres points to about 6.1 million against 6.3 million. Wheat flour output of 53,681 tonnes is flat on a run-rate basis. First quarters are seasonally weak in a rainy-season economy, so these are readings of direction, not forecasts. The direction is that mining is steady and the goods that households and builders buy are not growing.

Why the headline does not spread

Mining buys from abroad and pays taxes into a budget that spends on wages and security.

An open-pit copper mine imports its reagents, fuel and heavy equipment, sells its output abroad and pays its largest bills in dollars. Its link to the domestic economy runs through wages, local contracts and taxes. The IMF report notes that in 2024 imports grew for mining-related chemicals and for transport and insurance services, so a large part of mining’s spending leaves the country at the border.

The tax route is where the money lands, and the BCC’s public-finance table shows what it buys. Through June, revenue was 13.4 trillion francs and expenditure 15.3 trillion. Compensation took 5.46 trillion, exceptional spending 4.64 trillion and capital spending 1.13 trillion, which is 7.4 per cent of the total. Roads, schools and power lines, the investments that lift non-mining activity, are the smallest of the large lines.

Households carry the pressure

Inflation is falling, but the east is in a food crisis and prices there are still rising.

Inflation is helping. National year-on-year inflation was 7.76 per cent on 22 August, down from 11.69 per cent in December, and the franc is close to flat. The picture in the east is different: the World Food Programme’s March release put 28 million Congolese in acute food insecurity and found maize flour and cassava flour 37 per cent above December levels in worst-hit areas. Millions of households in North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri have lost both income and markets, which drags the national non-mining average down. Even in calmer provinces the household economy leans on imports: Africa24 reported on 25 August that Congo spends about $3 billion a year on imported food, while only about 1 per cent of its farmland is cultivated.

What the gap means for business

Plan on non-mining growth near 3.5 per cent and demand that depends on the state.

Retailers, builders and consumer-goods firms that budget on the 5.4 per cent national growth forecast the IMF projects will overestimate demand, because that forecast is driven by the extractive sector. The Fund’s baseline has extractive growth slowing, which leaves the rest of the economy to carry more of the total. Firms selling to mines are in a different position: they follow output that is steady, and they are paid in dollars.

The decision for sales and supply teams

Budget the household business at three or four per cent and chase mining-linked demand.

Consumer firms should set volume budgets for 2026 at 3 to 4 per cent growth, hold stock levels tight, and reserve expansion capital for the cities and corridors where mining payrolls and contracts circulate, such as Lubumbashi, Kolwezi and the Kinshasa-Matadi route. Suppliers to mines, from maintenance and catering to logistics, should build dollar contracts now because that is where demand is certain. Investors should watch capital spending in the budget statements: a rise in its share above 7 per cent is the earliest sign that the mining headline is spreading.