NICOLAS KAZADI, FINANCE MINISTER, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO Kazadi said the country is challenging investment deemed unfair across the board, with a focus on China as the biggest investor. "What happened in the past was not fair because those that negotiated the agreements were not well informed. We are trying to fix two or three major issues we have with (Chinese) companies." "The deputy Chinese minister for foreign affairs was in Kinshasa recently, we hope to have a resolution in the first semester of the year."
GUILLAUME DE DARDEL, HEAD OF TRANSITION, MERCURIA "In this critical mineral land grab, Western policies may be a bit weak when on the other side you have strong state-backed entities as in China. It's like bringing a knife to a gun fight. Policies are good but not necessarily on their own." "Because of the balkanisation of supply chains, you'll have to produce duplicates if you want to have independent refining outside of China."
KOSTAS BINTAS, CO-HEAD METALS & MINERALS, TRAFIGURA "I would highlight copper as the most critical metal given the shortage in the market. Everything that could go wrong for copper is going wrong - China with COVID, (the) energy crisis and high interest rates." "We only had 3.5 days of copper stock equivalent at the end of last year. Copper is recession proof. China and the United States will not stop spending on renewables."
SAAD RAHIM, CHIEF ECONOMIST, TRAFIGURA "People are missing the forest for the leaves... If you look at what is happening in China, their crude buying is up. Domestic demand is strong, air travel, rail, transport in general are all above 2019 levels. It fluctuates on a daily or weekly basis, but the structural demand trend is higher."
NICK POPOVIC, CO-HEAD COPPER & ZINC, GLENCORE "You have a faultline developing. If you look at the bottlenecks, copper is there in every iteration. We have a very fast proliferation of new copper smelters, particularly in Asia, but not much happening in the mines" (Reporting by Julia Payne; Editing by Jan Harvey)
