Author: Congo Times

Historic Weight of the Timber Sector Few sectors embody the economic and diplomatic identity of the Republic of Congo as vividly as timber. Wood products represent roughly 7 % of national GDP and a quarter of non-oil export revenue, providing direct employment to more than 20 000 people according to the World Bank (2023). Brazzaville’s partners, from Beijing to Brussels, see in the dense Congolese rainforest not only a source of precious hardwoods but also a carbon sink of global relevance. Such dual significance explains why each administrative decision on concessions immediately echoes through chambers of commerce, development banks and…

Brazzaville June Floods Challenge Urban Preparedness At dawn on 14 June, an unusually intense cloudburst brought nearly a month’s worth of precipitation over Brazzaville within a few hours, overwhelming drainage canals in the northern arrondissements of Talangaï and Mfilou. According to preliminary data compiled by the Ministry of Social Affairs, seven lives were lost, 6 800 households were rendered homeless and roughly 28 075 citizens found themselves in urgent need of shelter, potable water and medical assistance. Engineers from the National Institute of Geography have since confirmed that several culverts had already approached their design limits after earlier seasonal showers,…

Brazzaville’s green ambition gains momentum A careful, almost discreet recalibration of the Congolese tourism narrative has been unfolding in government salons and private boardrooms alike. While hydrocarbons still dominate macro-economic statistics, the Ministry of Environment, Sustainable Development and the Congo Basin has quietly embraced a complementary ambition: to transmute the country’s largely intact tropical forests into an internationally credible destination for sustainable travel. The partnership sealed this summer with Wild Safari Tours, an African operator known for its low-impact logistics, marks a decisive step in that direction. Between carbon sinks and market demand: the rationale for sustainable tourism The Republic…

Diplomatic Tourism as a Vector of Soft Power Few bilateral dossiers illustrate the changing grammar of South–South relations as vividly as the emerging tourism dialogue between the Republic of Congo and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. In a recent audience at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Brazzaville, Ambassador Laura Evangelia Suárez underscored the “necessity of embedding Venezuelan tour operators in the Nabemba Tourism Expo 2025 platform so that Caracas can participate from an informed, operational standpoint.” Her wording, carefully calibrated, reflects a broader diplomatic calculus: tourism is not merely an industry; it is an instrument of soft power, reputational…

A Strategic Alliance between Newsrooms and Public Health Stakeholders The spacious conference hall of Brazzaville’s Centre de Formation des Médias pulsed last week with the sound of keyboards and quiet debate as more than forty journalists from radio, television and the digital press converged for an intensive capacity-building session on sexual and reproductive health and the prevention of gender-based violence. Convened by the United Nations Population Fund in concert with the Ministry of Health and several civic organisations, the workshop embodied a growing recognition that accurate information is itself a public-health intervention. Dr Agnès Kayitankore, UNFPA’s Resident Representative, framed the…

Industrial Ambition Returns to the Niari Valley The inauguration of the Nkayi ethanol distillery on 27 June 2025 marks the re-emergence of the Niari Valley as an industrial hub after decades of partial dormancy. Once compared to Germany’s Ruhr during the First Republic, the region’s productive fabric had been eroded by shifting commodity cycles and the structural adjustments of the 1990s. The present facility, developed by Somdia, the agro-industrial arm of France’s Castel Group, offers a tangible sign of renewed confidence in Congo-Brazzaville’s manufacturing base. Its daily capacity of fifty cubic metres—equivalent to more than six million litres of anhydrous…

Sahelian Upheavals Revive a Half-Century Question In Bamako, Ouagadougou and Niamey, military juntas justify their ascent by denouncing a lingering French stranglehold. The rhetorical power of this stance is undeniable, even if Paris today wields far fewer levers than it did during the Cold War. Polling remains scarce, but spontaneous street demonstrations and repeated attacks on French symbols suggest a genuine popular echo, particularly among urban youth born well after independence (Le Monde, 2025). The wave has now reached the Atlantic façade: Senegal’s request for the closure of French bases signals that even the most reliable partners are recalculating their…

Brazzaville’s sporting stage amplifies regional visibility In the waning days of June, Brazzaville’s Palais des Sports vibed to the rhythmic crack of celluloid as the city welcomed the Zone 4 Central African qualifiers for the 2024 African Table Tennis Championships. The event, sanctioned by the African Table Tennis Federation and locally orchestrated by the Fédération Congolaise de Tennis de Table, offered more than a podium for athletic prowess. It provided a platform for the Republic of the Congo to showcase organisational competence and reaffirm its aptitude for hosting high-impact regional gatherings, an aptitude already signalled during the 2015 African Games.…

A carefully calibrated local request On 28 June, during a ceremony blending ancestral rites with modern corporate protocol, eleven land-owning families from Kimbaka addressed President Denis Sassou Nguesso through traditional emissaries. Their demand was both precise and emblematic: a formal hiring quota for local youth at the Agri-Hub Arturo Bellezza, the new biofuel complex operated by the Italian major Eni. The families, whose plots anchor the 42-hectare site near Loudima in Bouenza, also called for the prompt payment of annual land rents, a mechanism enshrined in Congolese law since the 1973 Land Code yet often subject to protracted negotiation. By…

UN Signals Imperative of a Pragmatic Regulatory Architecture The marble halls of the ministère congolais des Postes, des Télécommunications et de l’Économie numérique resonated this week with an appeal that was both urgent and cautiously optimistic. “We must build a digital-transformation trajectory that strengthens cybersecurity, respects user privacy and protects critical infrastructure,” insisted Abdourahamane Diallo, the United Nations Resident Coordinator in the Republic of Congo, at the official launch of the thirteenth Central African Cyber Drill. His intervention, though couched in the precise language of diplomacy, underlined a reality that global indices corroborate: Africa’s cyberspace is expanding at a pace…