Paper short abstract:

Despite political uncertainty, in 2018, the country renewed with resource nationalism in an era of green technology. It reformed its mining policy to improve management of mining wealth and increase mining revenues, leaving unease of foreign mining companies operating in the country.

Paper long abstract:

Since independence in 1960, the DR Congo, a resource-rich country, has attempted to regain control of the management of its mining resources. Under Mobutu's era in the 70s, it experimented the zaïrenization of its economy, notably the mining sector. Then, under Kabila's era, the country experienced the mining contracts' review in 2007-2010, combined with two reforms of its mining policy in 2002 and 2018.

The mining policy of 2002 was mainly designed to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to develop the extractive sector. A decade later, it became too generous for foreign mining companies and detrimental to the state. In response, on March 9, 2018, the Congolese authorities reformed the mining legal framework. They promoted a resource nationalism, which is mainly featured by suppressing a 10-year stability clause and increasing the taxation of minerals to prevent tax base erosion. In the context of climate-friendly technology, on November 24, 2018, the country designated cobalt, germanium, and coltan, as strategic minerals, which led to further raising the taxation of these minerals. Since then, multinationals operating in the country have remained opposed to the new mining legislation. Nonetheless, on January 10, 2019, the DR Congo embarked on a new phase of political alternation, which might impact the key priorities of resource nationalism's strategy.

As a policy recommendation, the attempt at changing relationships between the state and mining foreign companies will remain a critical challenge to achieve, as the state's legitimacy has to be consolidated.