Kinshasa, August 24th, 2021 (CPA).– The Minister in charge of Foreign Trade, Jean-Lucien Bussa Tongba, opened Monday in Kinshasa, a seminar to upgrade agents and executives of the National Agency for the Promotion of Exports (ANAPEX), with a view to placing the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) with a view to reducing unnecessary imports by implementing an import-substitution policy in order to expand the supply of exportable products and support strategic export sectors
He, in his speech, deplored the fact that the country depends on the outside to feed its population by spending annually more than 1.5 billion USD on food imports. What, according to him, is « unacceptable » for an agricultural country, endowed with 80 (eighty million) hectares of cultivable land, but which annually imports nearly 500 (five hundred million) USD of the products pharmaceuticals.
« For more than four decades now, the DRC’s trade with the outside world is essentially dominated by a structural current account in deficit, reflecting the low level of exports in the face of increasingly consistent imports, » said Minister Jean. Lucien Bussa, stressing that the current balance is made up of the trade balance, the services balance, the income balance and the transfer balance.
Regarding the trade balance, Minister Bussa indicated that unlike the other two, it appears to be in surplus, however before revealing that this finding appears misleading because this surplus is generated mainly by the high level of exports of primary products, same in volume and value. As for the level of the trade balance, it is very low compared to most African countries.
He also added that the figures reveal that the structure of the DRC’s foreign trade is marked by imports of just over 70% of manufactured products, and more or less 25% of large-scale food products. consumption.
On the other hand, continued the Minister of Foreign Trade, exports consist of nearly 96% of primary products, in particular minerals and hydrocarbons, as well as 40% of agricultural products.
Jean Lucien Bussa concluded by noting that the missions awaiting the participants in the seminar must respond to multiple challenges for the country. He called on them for the conscientious accomplishment of said missions to allow the DRC to take advantage of various external markets, among others through the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (ZLECAF); reintegration into the AGOA as well as participation in the Chinese and European markets.
For the Ministry of Foreign Trade, ANAPEX is considered a strategic and essential tool available to the government in the design of targeted economic diversification policies, with the aim of making the country’s economy competitive on the African and global market. .
This three-day seminar, from 23 to 25 August 2021, has as its main theme: « Promotion of exports of Congolese products of agricultural, agro-industrial, industrial and artisanal origin », it is noted. ACP/