Banana Atlantic City

Banana Atlantic City rests on a plain observation: it is cheaper to move electricity than ore. Rather than build processing plants inland, it brings industry to the coast, beside the country's only deep-water port and within reach of the hydroelectric power of Inga, on the Congo River.

Planned as a special economic zone between Muanda and Banana, in Kongo Central, it will refine and process the region's minerals, together with phosphates, bauxite and copper, so that value is added at home rather than exported raw; around that industrial core stand the port logistics, housing and public works of a working city. Power comes first from hydroelectric plants near Inga that can be built quickly, then from the larger works of the complex, making the city an anchor customer for one of the largest undeveloped sources of hydroelectricity in the world.

The programme is pursued jointly by the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the United States, with investment partners in the United Arab Emirates. Carousel Finance Africa is its master developer, leading the design of the city and its industrial estate, the financing of the zone and its utilities, and the assembly of the consortium that will build it.