Author: Congo Times

French Withdrawal Accelerates Across the Continent From Rabat to Pointe-Noire the tricolour logos that once dominated African high streets are being repainted. In the course of eighteen months Société Générale announced the divestiture of a dozen subsidiaries, including its Congolese unit sold to Vista Group in 2023, while BNP Paribas finalised its West African exit and BPCE reduced its network to a handful of representative offices (Reuters, company statements 2023-24). Rather than an isolated repositioning, the decisions reflect a long-gestated consensus in Parisian boardrooms that capital and compliance budgets yield higher risk-adjusted returns in Europe or North America. Executives frame…

A Timely Infusion of Medical Resources The arrival in early August of pharmaceuticals and surgical equipment worth 27.51 million FCFA at the Sino-Congolese Friendship Hospital of Mfilou has generated measured optimism among practitioners in Brazzaville. Handed over by Dr Wang Zhitao, head of the 28th Chinese medical mission, to senior health-ministry official Donatien Moukassa, the consignment comprises anti-inflammatories, antimalarials and broad-spectrum antibiotics, alongside sterilisation sets and portable monitors (Xinhua dispatch, 05 Aug 2025). Although modest in absolute monetary terms—roughly 44 000 USD—the package plugs recurrent supply gaps at a facility that receives close to 400 outpatient visits daily. Health Diplomacy…

Brazzaville’s Semi-Marathon at Twenty When the starter’s pistol echoes along the banks of the Congo River on 14 August 2025, the Brazzaville International Half-Marathon (SMIB) will celebrate its twentieth edition. Born in 2005 under the aegis of the National Petroleum Company of Congo (SNPC) and held each year on the eve of Independence Day, the race has matured into a flagship of soft power, pairing athletic prowess with a festive assertion of national unity (SNPC press release, 2023). The high patronage of President Denis Sassou Nguesso underscores the state’s conviction that endurance sport can function as a consensual rallying point,…

A Resonant Weekend in Mouyondzi Under the vaulted sky of Mouyondzi’s public garden, far from the maritime bustle of Pointe-Noire, the reggae ensemble Conquering Lions unfolded two marathon performances on 31 July and 1 August. The concerts, lasting well over three hours apiece, have already joined local lore. What could have been a routine provincial tour became, by common testimony, an exercise in collective catharsis: the pulses of roots reggae merged with the polyrhythms of Central Africa, eliciting both dance and reflection among an audience that soon outnumbered the venue’s formal capacity. Soft Power and the Recalibration of Cultural Policy…

Regional Corridors at a Turning Point From the forested tri-border junction of Cameroon, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, the six-member Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) sought this July to translate continental ambition into local reality. The sixteenth Trans-Border Fair of Central Africa, widely known by its French acronym FOTRAC, unfolded over two weeks in Kyé-Ossi, Bitam and Ebibeyin, towns whose dusty arteries funnel much of the sub-region’s informal commerce. In the broader diplomatic discourse on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), corridors are often invoked as metaphors; here they were literal, throbbing with trucks, small vendors and customs…

Brazzaville at the Center of Continental Ambition For three days the Kintélé International Conference Center, a modern complex on the northern bank of the Congo River, morphed into the cockpit of Africa’s energy diplomacy. Delegations from eighteen member states of the African Petroleum Producers’ Organization (APPO) arrived with a single-sheet agenda: compress years of preparatory work and give the African Energy Bank—popularly abbreviated BAE after its French designation—its final political impetus. The choice of Brazzaville was hardly incidental; ever since President Denis Sassou Nguesso welcomed APPO’s headquarters in 2018, Congo-Brazzaville has positioned itself as an honest broker between hydrocarbon giants…

Geography as a Strategic Asset The Republic of Congo stretches for barely 170 kilometres along the Gulf of Guinea, yet those mangrove-lined estuaries give the country a coveted maritime gateway that few landlocked neighbours can claim. Behind the shoreline, a vast carpet of equatorial forest—covering roughly two-thirds of national territory—feeds the oxygen of a global climate system and harbours biodiversity now monitored by UNESCO biosphere reserves. The coastal plains rise quickly toward the Batéké plateaus in the east, a geological corridor rich in lateritic soils and underscored by iron ore, potash and phosphate seams that have lately attracted South-South capital…

Domestic Talent at the Forefront In the carefully tiered architecture of African football, the African Nations Championship (CHAN) remains the only continental tournament reserved exclusively for home-based professionals. For the Republic of Congo, whose senior side traditionally draws on a global diaspora, the so-called Congo B selection provides a laboratory for cultivating domestic expertise while projecting a distinctive brand of sporting sovereignty. Federation officials in Brazzaville routinely underline that the squad, colloquially dubbed the Diables Rouges locaux, functions as a showcase for the national league’s competitive depth, a point reiterated by the Fédération Congolaise de Football (Fécofoot) during a recent…

Bangui Hosts African Caucus 2025 Spotlighting Finance A humid August morning on the banks of the Oubangui River set the stage for the African Caucus 2025, a discreet yet influential conclave that annually unites African finance ministers and central-bank governors. With macroeconomic coordination on the agenda, President Faustin-Archange Touadéra used a side-meeting at Bangui’s Palais de la Renaissance to invite United Bank for Africa to plant its flag in the Central African Republic. The move, he argued, would expand credit in a country where the ratio of private-sector loans to GDP remains below four per cent, one of the continent’s…

Bergen Pitch and the Symbolism of Neutral Soil When the public address system inside Norway’s Brann Stadion announces the squads of Congo-Brazzaville and Sudan, it will do more than inaugurate a football match. It will mark a moment in which Central African sporting ambition intersects with European logistical pragmatism, a scenario rendered necessary by renovation work at several designated CHAN stadiums on the continent (CAF, 2024). For Brazzaville, the relocation is also an unexpected stage for showcasing the depth of its domestic league, away from the familiar humidity of the equatorial basin and under the North Sea breeze. Recent Form:…