Reuters reported that in August, the South African rock band Watershed flew up to southern Congo in a corporate jet to play at a private function put on by a foreign company running a copper mine in the area.
Mr Craig Hinds Watershed lead singer said that "It was really well organized we just flew up and played and then flew back. But the place was poor and desolate. As it was a private function, Hinds did not want to disclose the name of the miner. But the episode is telling.
Just a few years ago, it would have been unthinkable for a foreign band to fly to a remote part of Congo, better known for graft, war and disease to play a corporate gig. But the times are changing and money is flowing at a torrid pace into the vast strip of copper that straddles Democratic Republic of Congo and neighboring Zambia. As a result, the mines on both sides of the border are being redeveloped after decades of neglect and ruinous policies.
Mr Robin Bhar an analyst with Credit Agricole in London said that "Both countries' output fell to very low levels through lack of investment and low prices, but it is picking up from that low base."
Investors still face a host of issues including a new nationalist president in Zambia and woeful infrastructure. Still, investment into Africa's Copper Belt over the next few years should reach billions of dollars and push it into the production big leagues of a metal crucial for global industry. Despite recent setbacks copper's price is down some 25% so far this year the long term outlook for the benchmark industrial metal is bullish, driven by demand from Asia and other emerging countries and regions.
Zambia's Chamber of Mines reckons the country can roughly double copper output to 1.5 million tonnes per year by 2016. Other forecasts are more modest though still buoyant.
According to Reuters' Metal Production Database, Zambia will produce around 1.3 million tonnes of copper from mine and leach operations by 2014. At that stage it could be the world's fifth largest producer of copper concentrates.
With Congo's output from mining and leaching forecast to reach around half a million tonnes by 2014 from around 300,000 tonnes in 2010, Africa's Copper Belt could be producing around 1.8 million tonnes before the middle of the decade. It is a far cry from the 1980s and 1990s when copper output from Zambia's nationalized mines limped along at around 250,000 tonnes a year from a peak of 750,000 tonnes in the early 1970s.
Vale found itself outbid by Jinchuan, China's dominant nickel producer, in the scuffle for Metorex, a medium sized South Africa listed mining firm that digs for copper and cobalt in Zambia and Congo. Jinchuan won with USD 1.3 billion bid. But while the rewards could be high the risks and obstacles on Africa's Copper Belt remain daunting.
