The Democratic Republic of Congo holds many economic trumps

The first is the country’s potential natural wealth, in the form of mineral resources. Unfortunately, the revenues from these riches have never benefited the ordinary Congolese people.

The land is also very fertile. Tropical products grow and flourish in Congo, as do Mediterranean and European crops. Coffee, tea, cotton and palm oil are important crops, and coffee is an important export product. However, there has never been a serious agricultural policy.

(c) Henk Weltevreden

In fact, since the 1998 civil war, the development of the economy has pushed into the background. A kind of war economy emerged, in which everyone grabbed what they could to their heart’s content. The decline of the roads and other infrastructure reinforced the downward spiral.

The official per capita income of the population is extremely low: only 25 eurocents per day. This puts the Congolese among the poorest people in the world.

Looking at these figures, it would be easy to say that the country is in its last dying moments: “Congo is no longer liveable.” Joblessness is overwhelming and pervasive, and wages mean almost nothing after successive devaluations of the currency. What’s more, the wages often exist only on paper; employers frequently do not actually pay anything at all. Public services like health care and education barely function. Only the rich can gain access to such facilities.

A parallel economy has sprung up from the rubble of the official economy. The self-sufficient agriculture and a proliferation of informal companies form the foundation of actual existence.

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