DRC: Over 300,000 jobs to be lost

  1. Posted on Tuesday 9 December 2008 - 12:10
    pweto
    Image of pweto
    Emmanuel Pweto, AfricaNews reporter in Kinshasa, DRC Photo: Christophe Rigaud
    More than 300,000 jobs would be lost by the end of this month in the mining province of Katanga in the south-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), due to falling metal prices and the financial crisis, a provincial official said Monday.
    DRCongo21_Christophe Rigaud
    "We have additional 200,000 unemployed and they will be 300,000 to 350,000 by the end of the year," said Minister of Mines of Katanga province, Barthélemy Mumba Gama. "Because of falling metal prices, companies no longer cover their production costs," he explained.

    "Their current fall in stock market and the local market, this means the closure of production units, layoffs and shutdown orders to subcontractors," he continued.
    In addition, the Congolese mining industry was "thriving but in the process of rehabilitation" after 90 years of decline, Mumba said.

    "Mining companies were negotiating credits to finance their investments and tightening of credit on world markets has forced to abandon some projects,” he added. A meeting was scheduled between business leaders and unions in the province to try to minimize the number of layoffs, he said.

    Katanga province is the main mining region of the DRC and has more than 30 percent of estimated world reserves of cobalt and 10 percent copper, but also of tin, gold and uranium.
    But the price of copper is at its lowest since June 2005 and cobalt has been divided by five since July.

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