India losing out on African minerals

To grab a higher share of margins, the DRC government has recently approved a new mining code that has enhanced the royalty rates on cobalt from 3 per cent to 10 per cent

Lubumbashi’s nondescript Luano International Airport has been abuzz with visitors coming in from China, South Korea, Japan and other countries, many of them looking to tie their supplies of cobalt. Katanga province of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a francophone central African country that has attracted global attention in the recent past for all the wrong reasons, is the source of about 60 per cent of global cobalt supplies. With China, India, Europe and several other countries embarking on the electric vehicles bandwagon, the requirement for cobalt, which is a key component of batteries, has seen its prices shoot up