DRC & China, page-3

Chinese annual trade with Africa has blossomed to $166 billion, making it Africa's largest bilateral trading partner. The Chinese see Africa as both a place to obtain the raw materials needed to fuel its manufacturing-driven economy, and as an important emerging market in which to sell its products.
Congo is home to nearly half of the world’s cobalt reserves. And its substantial supply of copper ore tends to be high-grade. Some speculate Congo’s troubled ground may be infused with $24 trillion worth of raw minerals. Their worth is rising all the time: A decade ago, a ton of copper could fetch $1,700 on the world market. Today it’s $8,000. These lucrative minerals are what led two Chinese companies to make the largest deal in Congo’s history: Sicomines. They will partner with Congo’s government mining company to extract 6.8 million tons of copper and 427,000 tons of cobalt over the next 25 years. At current prices, the copper alone would be worth about $54 billion––three times Congo’s entire GDP.
Sicomines might seem like just an ordinary mining deal by a couple big Chinese companies. But it isn’t. Because in exchange for the minerals, Chinese companies are spending $3 billion to build roads, hospitals and universities in Kinshasa and throughout the Congo. The barter is part of a new philosophy that combines development aid and mineral concessions in a package deal. It’s a business model the Chinese are replicating across the African continent, which happens to be the most rapidly growing market in the world. And it’s something that Western countries like the United States, which strictly separate government and private enterprise, can’t quite duplicate.