page_title: Republic of the Congo
section_title: Economy
hierarchical_section_title: Republic of the Congo / Economy
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Maniok. A Blühender Zweig natürlicher Grösse. B fünfteiliges Blatt, verkleinert. 1 männliche Blüte im Längsschnitt 2/1; 2 weibliche Blüte im Längsschnitt 2/1; 3 Frucht natürlicher Grösse; 4 Same von innen; 5 Same von der Seite gesehen; Stärkekörner. Latina: Manihot esculenta. Русский: Маниок съедобный. A — цветущая ветвь; B — лист; 1 — мужской цветок в продольном разрезе; 2 — женский цветок в продольном разрезе; 3 — плод (коробочка); 4 — семя изнутри; 5 — семя, вид со стороны.
context_page_description: The Republic of the Congo, also known as Congo-Brazzaville, the Congo Republic or simply either Congo or the Congo is a country located in the western coast of Central Africa. To the west lies Gabon; Cameroon to its northwest and the Central African Republic to its northeast; the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the southeast and the Angolan exclave of Cabinda to its south; and the Atlantic Ocean to its southwest. The official language is French.
  The region was dominated by Bantu-speaking tribes at least 3,000 years ago, who built trade links leading into the Congo River basin. Congo was formerly part of the French colony of Equatorial Africa. The Republic of the Congo was established on 28 November 1958 and gained independence from France in 1960. It was a Marxist–Leninist state from 1969 to 1992, under the name People's Republic of the Congo. The sovereign state has had multi-party elections since 1992, although a democratically elected government was ousted in the 1997 Republic of the Congo Civil War, and President Denis Sassou Nguesso, who first came to power in 1979, has ruled for 35 of the past 40 years.
context_section_description: The economy is a mixture of village agriculture and handicrafts, an industrial sector based largely on petroleum, support services, and a government characterized by budget problems and overstaffing. Petroleum extraction has supplanted forestry as the mainstay of the economy. In 2008, oil sector accounted for 65% of the GDP, 85% of government revenue, and 92% of exports. The country also has large untapped mineral wealth.
  In the early 1980s, rapidly rising oil revenues enabled the government to finance large-scale development projects with GDP growth averaging 5% annually, one of the highest rates in Africa. The government has mortgaged a substantial portion of its petroleum earnings, contributing to a shortage of revenues. 12 January 1994 devaluation of Franc Zone currencies by 50% resulted in inflation of 46% in 1994, but inflation has subsided since.
  Economic reform efforts continued with the support of international organizations, notably the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The reform program came to a halt in June 1997 when civil war erupted. When Sassou Nguesso returned to power at the end of the war in October 1997, he publicly expressed interest in moving forward on economic reforms and privatization and in renewing cooperation with international financial institutions. However, economic progress was badly hurt by slumping oil prices and the resumption of armed conflict in December 1998, which worsened the republic's budget deficit.
  The current administration presides over an uneasy internal peace and faces difficult economic problems of stimulating recovery and reducing poverty, despite record-high oil prices since 2003. Natural gas and diamonds are also recent major Congolese exports, although Congo was excluded from the Kimberley Process in 2004 amid allegations that most of its diamond exports were in fact being smuggled out of the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo; it was re-admitted to the group in 2007.
  The Republic of the Congo also has large untapped base metal, gold, iron and phosphate deposits. The country is a member of the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA). The Congolese government signed an agreement in 2009 to lease 200,000 hectares of land to South African farmers to reduce its dependence on imports.
  The GDP of the Republic of the Congo grew by 6% in 2014 and is expected to have grown by 7.5% in 2015.
  In 2018, the Republic of the Congo joined the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
caption: Cassava is an important food crop in the Republic of the Congo.
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