The Democratic Republic of Congo’s Katanga province raised its tax on copper and cobalt concentrates to $100 per metric ton from $60 as the country prepares to ban their export at the end of this year.
“We needed a way to discourage companies from continuing to export concentrates, so we raised the tax,” Valery Mukasa, chief of staff for Mines Minster Martin Kabwelulu, said yesterday in an interview in Kinshasa, the capital.
The Central African nation is trying force mining companies to increase the value of their exports by fully processing minerals within the country’s borders, Mukasa said.
Congo was the world’s eighth-largest producer of copper and the biggest producer of cobalt last year, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. At least 13 companies exported concentrates of copper, cobalt, or a copper-cobalt concentrate last year, according to Katangan provincial Mines Ministry statistics.