Author: Emmanuel Mbemba

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…

Cybercrime’s Macroeconomic Shadow over Africa The arithmetic is sobering. The International Telecommunication Union estimates that a cyber-attack strikes somewhere in the world every thirty-nine seconds, and that the global bill for malicious intrusions could rise to 9.5 trillion dollars by 2025 (ITU 2024). On the African continent, where digital adoption is accelerating faster than the pace of regulatory harmonisation, the economic haemorrhage already surpasses four billion dollars each year. Interpol’s latest African Cyberthreat Assessment confirms that corporate entities now endure an average of 3 370 incursions every week, a year-on-year surge of more than ninety per cent (Interpol 2023). Such…

A strategic ribbon-cutting in Nkayi The intense June heat did not discourage dignitaries, diplomats and local farmers from converging on Nkayi, some 350 kilometres south of Brazzaville, for a ceremony whose symbolism went beyond its provincial setting. When President Denis Sassou Nguesso cut the scarlet ribbon on 27 June 2025 he did more than open a factory; he offered a public illustration of his administration’s determination to re-industrialise the Bouenza corridor and signal macroeconomic resilience after the twin shocks of the pandemic and fluctuating oil revenues. Government communiqués stressed the head of state’s personal interest in translating policy road-maps into…

A discreet financial pillar in Brazzaville’s diversification drive Amid the more visible state-led infrastructure ventures that dominate headlines, Crédit du Congo has been methodically expanding its mandate from traditional retail banking into the politically salient terrain of investment promotion. The lender—backed by regional shareholders yet operating under the prudential umbrella of the Central African Banking Commission—now frames itself as a partner to the National Development Plan 2022-2026, which prioritises economic diversification beyond hydrocarbons. Senior executives argue that commercial banks possess complementary agility to public agencies, enabling them to sift projects quickly and channel capital to sectors where multiplier effects are…

A decade of maritime resilience in Congolese waters The soft equatorial breeze drifting across the quays of Pointe-Noire carries with it the unmistakable sound of tugboats and container cranes, a symphony that Congo Maritime Services Company (CMS) has learned to orchestrate with growing dexterity since its incorporation in 2014. From a modest shipping agency serving coastal cabotage, CMS has expanded into a multi-faceted service provider encompassing vessel husbandry, offshore logistics, customs facilitation and nautical assistance. Its anniversary, commemorated in early May at the city’s convention centre, provided an apt moment to reflect on how a national operator can anchor itself…

Metallic liquidity as a diplomatic instrument When Governor Yvon Sana Bangui confirmed on 30 June that the Bank of Central African States would circulate an additional tranche of coins across the six CEMAC economies, the statement was more than a logistical footnote. In a region where small-value transactions knit daily commerce, scarcity of change can aggravate inflation, fuel informal currency substitutes and erode confidence in the common monetary architecture. Injecting 500 million CFA francs in denominations from 1 to 500 CFA, including the newly reintroduced 200-franc piece, amounts therefore to a quiet but deliberate act of financial diplomacy. Retail microeconomics…

Brazzaville signals renewed resolve on agrarian human capital In a city more accustomed to the deliberations of peace envoys than to agronomic jargon, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries closed an intensive workshop on 26 June that quietly signalled a decisive turn in Congo-Brazzaville’s development agenda. Convened under the Integrated Agricultural Value Chain Development Project, better known by its French acronym Prodivac, the meeting gathered trade-union leaders, employers’ federations, AfDB officials and United Nations technical advisers. Their mission: to dissect, adjust and ultimately endorse a sectoral skills development strategy designed to propel national value chains from subsistence margins to…

From Vision to Protocol: Astana and Brazzaville Align Logistics Maps The signature in Astana on 29 May 2025 crystallised a year of discreet exchanges between Congo-Brazzaville and Kazakhstan. The joint communiqué framed the pact as a “strategic North-South corridor” capable of knitting Central Africa to Central Asia through a seamless chain of maritime, rail and inland waterway links. While talks unfolded on the margins of the Astana International Forum, preparatory missions had multiplied since mid-2024 under the guidance of specialist units within both foreign ministries. For Brazzaville, the agreement resonates with a broader national strategy to exit oil dependence by…

Brazzaville renews its attention to agro-skills By formally validating a comprehensive skills-development strategy for agriculture, the Republic of Congo signals a deliberate pivot from raw-material dependence toward value-added rural productivity. The document, produced under the Integrated Agricultural Value Chain Development Project (Prodivac) financed by the African Development Bank, was endorsed in late June after months of iterative consultations. Senior civil servant Pascal Robin Ongoka, speaking for Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries Paul Valentin Ngobo, praised the ‘co-construction approach that places expertise, not ideology, at the centre of policy design’. Such phrasing reflects Brazzaville’s wider effort to project technocratic stability…

Brazzaville’s Agricultural Crossroads and Import Dilemma From the corn stalls of Oyo to the plantain depots of Pointe-Noire, the Republic of Congo’s food story has long been one of paradox. Vast tracts of fertile soil and dependable equatorial rainfall coexist with a structural dependence on imports that, by some estimates, covers close to seventy per cent of the country’s food basket (FAO, 2023). Rising freight costs and global supply-chain volatility have sharpened policy attention in Brazzaville, highlighting the strategic nature of agriculture not merely as a rural vocation but as a pillar of national sovereignty. The government’s most recent National…