The Lobito Corridor shows how digitization is shaping critical minerals competition | Chatham House

EXPERT COMMENT

The railway from Angola to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia is a global focal point of the race for critical minerals. But the digitization of mineral supply chains will be crucial to achieving genuine economic transformation in the region.

Two recent major investment announcements have refocused attention on the Lobito Corridor, a Western-backed infrastructure initiative centred on a railway linking Lobito on Angola’s Atlantic coast to the inland resource-rich areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Zambia.

On 3 July, the US International Development Finance Corporation and the Development Bank of Southern Africa secured a $753-million package to rehabilitate and upgrade the 1,300-km single-track railway from Lobito to the DRC border, known as the Lobito Atlantic Railway. 

On 10 July, the DRC government approved a partnership with Portuguese construction company Mota-Engil for a complete rehabilitation of the railway line from Angola’s border to the copper and cobalt producing regions in the DRC. 

These moves are part of wider geopolitical competition between the US (and its European partners) and China – the dominant international presence in the region – over infrastructure, mineral production and development opportunities. In this context, the railway has become the centrepiece of a potential regional mining ecosystem that could economically transform Africa’s strategic Copperbelt. 

Click here to continue reading the full version of this Expert Comment on the Chatham House website.