【Ferro-alloys.com】:Acting Minister of Mines, Fuh Calistus Gentry, is set to preside over a ceremony on December 22, 2023, to launch the construction of the mine for the globally significant Mbalam iron ore deposit located between Cameroon and Congo.  The "draft program" for this mission signed by the Acting Minister himself on December 19, 2023, does not indicate where the ceremony will take place, nor whether the Congolese authorities will participate. However, it mentions that after the "launch of mine construction work", "exchanges with local authorities" are planned in Ntam, a Cameroonian town bordering Congo in the Eastern region.

Since August 17, 2022, when the Cameroon Mining Company Sarl (CMC) was awarded the mining permit for the Mbalam iron ore deposit, no information has yet filtered out, either on the financing or on the financial partners of this gigantic mining project. Announcements made by AustSino, partner of Bestway Finance (a Singapore-based investment vehicle with the same parent company as CMC) on the Mbalam mining project did indicate that a group of Chinese companies have joined the project.

They include China Railway 20 Bureau Group Corporation (CR20G), China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC), China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), and China National Chemical Engineering Heavy-Mechanized Corporation Ltd (CNCEHMC), as well as CCC Mining Group Limited. Most of these are construction and infrastructure companies, or mining companies. No financial partners appear on this list. Or maybe, for the construction of the Mbalam mine, Cameroon Mining Corporation is exclusively supported financially by its parent company Coconut Logic Holdings Pte Ltd (which also controls Bestway Finance), an investment vehicle based in Singapore.

• [Editor:Alakay]