The Democratic Republic of Congo has resumed cobalt exports after a 10-month halt intended to stem falling prices due to global oversupply, the government said on Tuesday.

The DRC is the world’s leading producer of cobalt — a metal critical to top-range batteries, including those used in smartphones and electric cars.

Initially imposed for four months, the ban was designed to stabilise the market “in the face of an overabundance of supply” internationally, the government said at the time.

“Since Friday, the Democratic Republic of Congo has resumed exporting its cobalt,” Finance Minister Doudou Fwamba told reporters.

He stressed the suspension in February had been designed to ensure “national sovereignty over raw materials”.

The DRC produced 76 percent of the world’s cobalt in 2024, according to the US Geological Survey.

“How can we be the number-one supplier of 70 percent of this strategic product yet not influence price formation? We refused to accept that,” Fwamba said.

The export ban was aimed at stemming the fall in prices caused by abundant supply, notably from the Chinese mining company CMOC.

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CMOC operates Tenke Fungurume and Kisanfu in the DRC — two of the world’s largest mines.

“We lost fiscal revenue due to the systematic decline in prices,” the minister added.

He said the strategy — led by Congolese government body ARECOMS, which regulates small-scale subsistence mining — had paid off.

“The price of cobalt has risen from $22,000 per tonne to $54,000 or $55,000,” he said.

Despite its mineral wealth, the DRC remains among the world’s least developed countries, and competition for its minerals has exacerbated conflict, graft, smuggling, and mismanagement.

Artisanal mining, which accounts for between three percent and five percent of total Congolese production, remains associated with human rights abuses, according to experts.

Cobalt is mainly extracted from mines in the southeastern province of Katanga.

The province has largely been spared from the armed conflict ravaging the eastern mining provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu, where the Rwanda-backed M23 militia controls vast swathes of territory.

AFP