The country has recently attracted a strong influx of international companies seeking to tap into the vast mineral wealth.

During the 1960s French exploration companies identified vast evaporative zones containing sylvinite and carnallite mineralisation covering the Congo Basin.

From 1985 to 1999, the Congo became structurally indebted as it struggled with political and economic difficulty despite the significant inflow of oil revenue.

In 2000 the government began to show a genuine commitment to developing a mining sector, and it is a central part of the country’s economic diversification program – Le Chemin d’Avenir (Path Forward).

However, corruption has been significantly reduced and the ROC was later reinstated to the Kimberly Process after it made improvements in monitoring procedures for its mining sector.

Sassou, the current president, has repeatedly stated he wants to build a lucrative mining industry, unlike that of the neighboring DRC, which is plagued by corruption and mismanagement.

In February the National Development and Reform Commission of the People's Republic of China (NDRC) extended provisional approval of the bid to July 2013.

In December 2011, the Ministry of Mining and Geology was invited to London, to receive second place in the "Country of the Year" prize, after Liberia.

MagMinerals Inc., a division of MagIndustries Corp. of Canada, continued financing negotiations for the development of Mengo exploitation permit and the Kouilou potash processing facility.

of Canada, continued negotiations to secure financing for the development of the Mengo exploitation permit and the Kouilou potash processing facility.

The country has considerable and varied natural resource wealth, a strategic location with an ISPS-certified port, a capital city across the river from the enormous DRC market, and a relative dearth of competition.

[8] As of 2012, seven mining permits have been granted: Precambrian rocks of the Archean to Neoproterozoic Age form the central part of the Republic of the Congo, overlain by continental Cretaceous and Tertiary Sediments.

The Coastal basin is made up of Cretaceous to Quaternary marine sediments, including phosphatic sequences and evaporites.

[12] Iron ore has also been discovered in the northwestern part of the Archaean Congo Craton (Sangha region), within the Chaillu Block.

This is a metamorphosed complex of Tonalite- Trondhjemite-Granite gneisses in which linear belts of metavolcaniclastic rocks and BIF occur.

However, since 2008 oil production has increased every year as a result of several new projects coming online, mainly Congo’s first deep-water field, Moho Bilondo.