Biden's Lobito Corridor Initiative Is Antithesis Of Africa's Drive For Local Processing Of Natural Assets

President Joe Biden of USA arrived in Angola on December 2, 2024, for a state visit, reported various media. The visit is his inaugural visit to Africa as US president.

According to the reports, President Biden's visit to Angola focuses on, among others, his administration's flagship initiative for Africa called the Lobito Corridor. The latter will entail 1344 kilometre railway system of renovated and brand new lines, that will stretch from Angola's port of Lobito on the Atlantic Ocean coast to Ndola in Zambia's Copperbelt Province via Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The planned railway system is even envisaged for extension from Ndola to the port of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania on the Indian Ocean coast, probably through integrating it to the existing mighty Tanzania-Zambia Railway (TAZARA) line.

Reportedly, the main goal of the Lobito Corridor is that once it is implemented fully, it will help transport extracted raw mineral resources from the natural asset rich countries linked to the renovated and new railway system, namely Angola, DRC, Zambia, and probably Tanzania, to Lobito port. From there, the raw mineral resources will then be shipped to USA and Europe.

A rather out of fashion goal with some neo-imperialist undertone. That is because, currently many African countries distaste the colonial perception or narrative that they are mere exporters of raw materials to industrialized countries, and importers of goods made from the raw materials they export. As such, the countries are striving towards adding value to their extracted mineral resources through adopting mineral resource laws and policies that require local processing of most extracted raw minerals, and ban export of unprocessed mineral resources. Mining firms are therefore compelled to process extracted mineral resources prior to export. For instance, in Tanzania several mineral ore refining plants are said to have been built in recent years in response to this new approach in natural asset management, while in Botswana local processing of extracted raw diamonds has been going on for several decades now.

DRC, Zambia, Angola, and Tanzania have vast deposits of natural assets including critical minerals like cobalt, lithium, copper, manganese, etc.

However, a few African countries like Angola seems to still think that export of raw natural assets is a good idea. The administration there is said to have defended its stance on this during Biden's visit, naively saying that in previous years, raw mineral resources were extracted and taken away by foreign countries without consent of the people of Angola, but now raw mineral resources are extracted and exported with consent from Angolans. But then, the Angolan administration fails to understand that revenues accruing from exported raw natural assets are less than that from processed natural assets. Also, by exporting raw natural assets, a country is exporting employment opportunities, because local processing of natural assets generates jobs!

From the foregoing, Biden's Lobito Corridor is definitely antithesis of Africa's drive for local processing of its extracted mineral resources, hence increased revenues from the resources. The initiative need not be rejected though, but once the planned renovated and new railway system is built, it should be used to transport processed natural assets for export to other countries including USA and Europe. Such exports could include batteries to electric vehicle manufacturing firms worldwide. Production of the batteries could be joint ventures but right there in the countries where necessary critical minerals like cobalt and lithium are extracted.

All in all, with reportedly agreed total funding of only $1.3 billion, Lobito Corridor project is, so far, a rather small infrastructural project in Central and East Africa. That is very much so when lets say compared with a colossal total of over $16 billion of mainly public funds expected to be spent by the governments of Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda in their ongoing construction of brand new standard gauge railway (SGR) networks. In Tanzania and Uganda the networks are electrified, while that of Kenya is designed to allow electrification in the future.

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