187 ranked countries, classified lower than Niger despite a higher margin of improvement than the latter country from 2010's numbers.
The economy of the second largest country in Africa relies heavily on mining. However, the smaller-scale economic activity occurs in the informal sector and is not reflected in GDP data. The largest mines in the Congo are located in the Shaba province, in the South. The Congo is the world's largest producer of cobalt ore, and a major producer of copper and industrial diamonds, the latter coming from the Kasai province in the West. The Congo has 70% of the world's coltan, and more than 30% of the world's diamond reserves. mostly in the form of small, industrial diamonds. The coltan is a major source of tantalum, which is used in the fabrication of electronic components in computers and mobile phones. In 2002, tin was discovered in the east of the country, but, to date, mining has been on a small scale. Smuggling of the conflict minerals, coltan and cassiterite (ores of tantalum and tin, respectively), has helped fuel the war in the Eastern Congo. Katanga Mining Limited, a Swiss-owned company, owns the Luilu Metallurgical Plant, which has a capacity of 175,000 tonnes of copper and 8,000 tonnes of cobalt per year, making it the largest cobalt refinery in the world. After a major rehabilitation program, the company restarted copper production in December 2007 and cobalt production in May 2008. The Democratic Republic of Congo also possesses 50 percent of Africa's forests and a river system that could provide hydro-electric power to the entire continent, according to a U.N. report on the country's strategic significance and its potential role as an economic power in central Africa. It is one of the twenty lowest ranked countries on the Corruption Perception Index.
In 2007, The World Bank decided to grant the Democratic Republic of Congo up to $1.3 billion in assistance funds over the next three years.
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