The BCC revised growth upward as mining data arrived; household-facing sectors grew at the national pace.

By Kanisa Magazine · December 2021

In five weeks the Banque Centrale du Congo’s estimate of 2021 growth rose from 5.3 to 5.7 per cent, and the main thing that changed in that time was the data cut-off: the November digest built its estimate on production through June, the December one on production through September. That is worth knowing before anyone plans a business on a national growth rate.

Copper output, meanwhile, ran 13.5 per cent ahead of 2020. If mining grows at more than twice the national rate, something else in the economy must be growing slower than the headline.

Why the estimate moves

The growth figure follows mining output, and mining output is the best-measured part of the economy.

The BCC’s digest of 29 December puts real GDP at CDF 13,616 billion in 2005 prices, against CDF 12,880 billion in 2020, growth of 5.7 per cent. Per head the gain is 2.6 per cent, with the population assumed to be growing at 3.0 per cent. A footnote states the estimate rests on production data to the end of September. In a country where the informal economy is large and survey data are scarce, production returns from mining companies and a handful of large manufacturers carry most of the weight.

The revision cut both ways. In the same table the dollar value of 2021 output fell from US$53.4 billion in the November digest to US$52.3 billion in December, so the real growth rate went up while the nominal dollar total went down. A planner who needs a market size in dollars and one who needs a growth rate are reading different lines of the same page, and neither should be treated as a measure of a single company’s prospects.

The December figure is also not the only one. President Tshisekedi’s Minister of State for Planning, Christian Mwando, told the EXPO BETON construction fair on 1 December that 2021 growth would be 5.4 per cent and 2022 growth 6.4 per cent, as Zoom Eco reported. The IMF board, completing its first programme review on 15 December, said the rebound had been stronger than projected, backed by higher-than-envisaged mining output and a recovery in non-extractive growth.

What grew with it and what outran it

Consumer sectors tracked the national rate; mining and construction beat it.

Between January and November, cement output rose 21.4 per cent to 1,428,137 tonnes. Wheat flour gained 7.2 per cent, ports handled 6.6 per cent more cargo, electricity generation rose 6.2 per cent and alcoholic drinks 6.2 per cent. All four of the consumer and utility lines sit close to the 5.7 per cent national figure, while copper at 13.5 per cent and cement at 21.4 per cent run far above it. Crude oil fell 3.6 per cent.

The reading is that the household-facing economy grew at about the pace of the whole, which is respectable. The copper boom is a separate and faster engine that lifts the average by weight, not by spreading.

The employment proxy nobody can test

The sector’s own claim is that it employs more than a quarter of the national workforce.

The Chamber of Mines of the DRC, speaking through the Federation of Enterprises of Congo, says mining paid more than US$6 billion to the economy between 2018 and the first half of 2020, that mining employment has grown by more than 10 per cent a year, and that it accounts for over a quarter of national employment, as Zoom Eco reported. These are the industry’s numbers and the digest cannot confirm them. Taken at face value, they explain why the sector’s growth rate matters well beyond the mine gate.

The close: plan on 5 per cent, watch the gap

Budget to the national growth rate, and treat copper as upside.

A distributor or lender gauging demand for 2022 should plan on growth of about 5 to 6 per cent, in line with what cement, flour and beer already show, and not on the copper rate. It should also recheck the base: the BCC’s next estimate will rest on a longer production series, and the gap between the 5.4 and 5.7 per cent official figures is the margin of error a careful planner should carry.