Yearbook 2004
Congo. The total population in Republic of the Congo is 5,518,098 people in 2020. Republic of the Congo was excluded in July from the so-called Kimberley Process, the international cooperation in the diamond trade, which ensures that illegally mined diamonds do not come out on the market and thereby contribute to financing warfare. According to the Kimberley Process Supervisory Body, Republic of the Congo has not been able to account for where all the unprocessed diamonds come from which the country exports. Neighboring Congo-Kinshasa has long claimed that illegally mined diamonds from there were smuggled on via K. The exclusion means that Republic of the Congo is not allowed to export diamonds to countries within the Kimberley co-operation, which account for 98% of all diamond trade.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) commended Republic of the Congo for ambitious economic reforms, a condition for helping the country reduce its government debt, which per capita is among the highest in the world. However, the IMF demanded clearer accounts of the state oil company SNPC’s business.
MIDDLE CONGO. – Colony of French Equatorial Africa (v.), With an area of about 240,000 sq. Km., And a population of 662,000 residents (1931), of which 2240 Europeans. The territory stretches from the Atlantic to the SW. to the Ubanghi-Sciari to the NE., while to the East. and S. the Congo River with its Ubanghi tributary separates it from the Belgian Congo. The Congo and its main right tributaries, the Alima, the Likouala-Mossaka and the Sanga constitute the main artery of communication and penetration with the countries of the interior. River transport is ensured by a steam navigation service headed by Brazzaville and which runs along the Sanga and Ubanghi. Land communications are represented by the Brazzaville-Pointe-Noire railway line, of which several sections have already been completed. The total length of the railway line is 512 km; the works were divided into two parts: that of Brazzaville, 340 km long, and the other of Pointe-Noire, 172 km long. Operation is currently limited to 130 km. on the Pointe-Noire section and at 233 on the Brazzaville section. The port of Pointe-Noire is now used and equipped as a port for light ships.
The capital of the colony is Brazzaville with 4000 residents; its river port, a place of transit for all traffic directed on one side to the ocean and on the other to the interior regions, will be equipped in such a way as to meet the needs of the colony’s economic activity. The main exported products are: ivory, oil and palm nuts, copal gum, rubber and papyrus.
The trade movement in 1932 was 160,535,289 francs divided into 149,395,194 francs for imports and 11,140,095 for exports. The commercial traffic will improve when the colony, better equipped, will have the railway and the sea port that will allow to intensify the production and to enhance the mining region of Mindouli and M. Boko-Songo.