Mining-driven growth and a hard-won disinflation

After decades of instability, the Banque Centrale du Congo's own data point to one of the more stable stretches in the country's modern economic history, even as conflict in the east continues to pose risks. The central bank's 2024 annual report recorded inflation falling from 23.8% in 2023 to 11.7% in 2024, alongside real GDP growth of 6.7%, moderating from 8.6% the previous year as global cobalt and copper prices cooled from their 2022 peaks; the DRC is the world's largest cobalt producer and a major copper exporter, and mining now drives most of its foreign-currency earnings and growth. The Congolese franc, long one of Africa's most volatile currencies, also showed unusual steadiness through 2025, trading under 2,200 to the dollar on both the interbank and parallel markets with inflation near 2.3% and the currency actually appreciating against the dollar over the year. That combination of disinflation and currency stabilization marks a sharp contrast with the chronic currency crises and double-digit-to-hyperinflationary episodes that dominate most of the DRC's economic charts since independence, though the central bank has cautioned that structural imbalances, including heavy commodity dependence, remain unresolved.