The Democratic Republic of Congo has no shortage of projects that need money. The harder task is turning investor interest into projects that lenders are actually prepared to finance and that can eventually reach the construction stage.
That challenge is now at the center of an effort led by Serge Tshibangu, a former representative of President Félix Tshisekedi and head of the US-UK-Africa Business Council. Tshibangu plans to bring Congolese officials, lenders and industrial groups together in Johannesburg in November to promote major investment opportunities in the DRC. The initiative builds on cooperation already developed with South African infrastructure group Yellowstone.
Yellowstone provides a useful example of what Tshibangu is trying to achieve.
At Kasumbalesa, on the Zambian border, the company is involved in a planned dry port that could become an important piece of the DRC's trade infrastructure. OGEFREM, the country's multimodal freight management agency, signed a 23-year concession with Yellowstone Consortium in December 2025 for a project estimated at around $600 million. The facility is intended to handle cargo, provide warehousing and truck parking, and ease pressure on one of the country's busiest trade corridors.
What makes the project particularly relevant now is what happened after the announcement.
By August 2026, the dry port had reached the due diligence stage, with OGEFREM and Yellowstone reviewing technical and financial assessments. Standard Bank and Afreximbank were involved in the discussions as potential financial partners. A final financing package has not been publicly disclosed, so the $600 million figure remains the announced investment value rather than money already secured from lenders. Construction is currently targeted for January 2027, subject to the remaining technical, administrative and financial steps.
The same corridor is now attracting another Yellowstone-backed proposal. In July, Haut-Katanga's provincial government signed a memorandum of understanding with Yellowstone and Standard Bank for a six-lane concrete highway connecting Kasumbalesa, Lubumbashi and Likasi. Authorities say the road would improve the movement of people and freight and support economic activity along the corridor. But the highway is not yet where the dry port is. Its cost, financing structure and construction timetable have not been publicly established. For now, it is a memorandum of understanding rather than a fully financed infrastructure project.
That distinction matters for the DRC, where ambitious investment announcements are common but the distance between a project proposal and actual implementation can be considerable.
Tshibangu has been trying to close that gap for some time. In October 2025, his US/UK-Africa Business Council helped organize a Washington forum bringing Congolese ministers, international financial institutions, investors and private-sector executives together to discuss opportunities in mining, infrastructure, energy, agriculture and other sectors.
The Johannesburg meeting will therefore be less about simply telling investors that the DRC needs capital. The more difficult proposition is to put projects in front of investors with enough technical work, institutional backing and financial structure to make them investable.
For a country seeking to expand infrastructure while reducing its dependence on raw mineral exports, that distinction is crucial. Roads, logistics facilities and industrial projects can generate much broader economic benefits than capital inflows alone, but only if they move beyond announcements.
Kasumbalesa will be an important test of that process. If the project reaches construction as planned, it will offer a tangible example of how foreign investors, Congolese institutions and international banks can be brought together around a single piece of infrastructure.
The bigger question is whether that model can be repeated across the DRC.
