RESIlRICTED Report No. PA-118a Public Disclosure Authorized This report is for official use only by the Bank Group and specificaUy authorized organizations or persons. It may not be published, quoted or cited without Bank Group authorization. The ! Bank Sroup A.e -:taceptrespon:sibility for the ac-cu-acy or conm'.......e of the -- or. INTERNATIONAL BANK FOR RECONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMEN;T LNTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION Public Disclosure Authorized AGRICULTURAL SECTOR SURVEY REPUBLIC OF ZAIRE (in three volumes) VOLUME III Public Disclosure Authorized ANNEXES 7 THROUGH 11 June 19, 1972 Public Disclosure Authorized grculture Projects Departr,,ent BACl'GROu'1 DIATA US$1 = 0.5 zaires (Z) or 50 makuta (K) One zaire = 2.0 US$ Total Land Area 234.5 million ha (905,000 square miles) of which (i) Forests 102.3 million ha (ii) Cultivated land 2.3 million ha (iii) Permanent pasture 2.3 million ha (iv) Savannahs, mountains, rivers and lakes 127.6 million ha Population (Official estimate, 1970) 21.6 million Distribution: Rural 70% : Urban 30% Annual rate of growth, 1958-70: 3.9% Gross Domestic Product Total, 1970 (est.) Z 1,014 million (US$2,028 million) Per capita, 1970 (est.): Z 47 (US$94) Agricnltr1aloutpit a 5!nf GDPj 1969: 18% Commercialized production: 10% SubsisQntnce r,druclli-tion : RAl Agricultural Exports and Imports Value of Agricultural Exports, 1969: US$97 million Share of Total Exports: 14.5% Principal export products: palm oil, coffee, rubber, wood products-, t-ea Value of Agricultural Imports, 1968: US$56 million Sha Qre of Total impfort.- * 1 1%Y Principal imports: cereals, fish and fish products, ineat and darty product.s, fruit and vegetables, tobacco Consumer Price Index (IRES - Kinshasa) June 1970 (Tur:e 1960 = 100) 1 ,454A GENERAL NOTE 011 DATA The statistical data available on most facets of the economy and population oJ the Depubllc of 7Za-re are quite urreliable for te post-IUdeLIUndene L 1UUd -- a fact which official publications readily acknowledge. This report will ci te dlata fromm "-m,eto time for illustratv pu4o-s bu...-- attm,p ha,bee made to subjcct the data to extensive analysis of any kincl. Quantitative statements do appear in the. report, buL proDaDly wih less irequency tnan in other Bank documents, and should always he regarded with some caution. This generai quaiifying note is introduced at thze beginning of the report to alert the reader, and to avoid constant reDetition of thie same point wherever data are cited. ANNEX 7 Page 1 REPUBTIC OF 7AIRE ACRTCTTLTUJRAT SECTOR STRVEY FORESTPY A. General Overview 1. The forestry sector is currently estimated to contribute less i:han 5>' to the agpreRate value added in aRriculture and a similar fraction to the value of agricultural exports. ?Forest products have two main applications in Zaire. One is for household use in the form of firewood, hut supports, and charcoal raw material: the other is as lumber for commercial use in construction, furniture making, etc. The first, all for domestic consumption, carmot be properly auantified for lack of information, although its contribution to the house- hold economv, tn cities and towns as well as in the bush, is unquestionably important. Some information exists on commercial lumber production, which suggests that it had in 1969 a market value of some Z 5.5 million. Approx- imately 60% of commercial. output was consumed domestically and the rest exnorted. 3. Commercial forest exploitation takes place mainly in the Mayumbe, hut has been spreading of late to parts of the Cuvette Centrale (Equateur and Haut 7aire provinces) along the Zaire River. After years of intensive cutting, the commercially explottable-standi. in the Mayumbe are now virtually exhausted and future exDansion in lumbering will have to be based in ex- ploitation of the Cuvette. 4. As additional sawmills and plywood manufacturing facilities were installed In the past decade, the proportion of timber production procesised domestically has increased, and it currently stands at 80-85%. The depletion of the Mavumbe resources, however, has led to a steady decline in Lotal output durinR this period. While information on total production is not: available, exoort figures clearly reflect this trend (Table 1). ANNEXT 7 Page 2 TABLE 1: EXPORTS OF FOREST PRODUCTS, 1958-1970 ('000 n- 1) Logs Sawn Lumber Plywood Veneer 1958 100 49 20 4 1959 106 60 25 5 1q60 97 57 23 4 1961 80 36 31 7 1962 76 35 30 6 196.3 89 35 26 7 1964 83 40 29 - 1q65 73 33 46 - 1966 85 36 47 - 1967 60 30 33 - 1968 50 36 43 - 1969 37 33 32 11 1970 0 34 31 - Sutrcep Ministere AP 1 'Rennn,mip Natinaz%le and Banque Nationale. 5. Exports of logs.+were prohibited in October 1969 as an emergency measure to end 4wdnnt overexploftation of forest resources, parti- cularly in the Mavumbe. The Resource Base 6. Approximately 45% of the country's surface is covered with f!orests, wh-ich b-e classifi-edI as follows: £' L.~~ WILJJ.ALL mavua -L L~ ~ .LJ U L - -LJ rUrestu oLLIU1 t .UeV--eLtt t:e1LntaLe I X.U ,I) PLUIvtJ [la OutI-yrnR Corridors 730,000 ha Mavumne worest 2L40,IJUU na Mountaln vorests 3nn0,0n ha XTotal 102,27e0,00 ha ANNEX 7 Page 3 7. In addition, there are some 90 million ha of light and swampy forests and Guinea and Sudano-Zamberian savannahs, covnrilng a large e.^anse of the South of Zaire, but which have very limited fore,st product petcr-- tial (see Maps 4 and 8). P. Cuvette Centrale. Variations in altitude result in signiflicant differences in the structure of the forest in the Cuvette. The ^entral denression, reaching 2° on either side of the Ecuator. has an aveeRe alti- tude of 45n m and is occupied bv evergreen equatorial f^rest. Its composition is quite heterozenous and the proportion of valuable spe~cies is generally modest. Considerable areas are, in addition, subject to periodical flo;ods, thus further constraining the potential for eonmercinl exnloitation. In this zone, however, pure stands of Gilbertiodendra are found, which can be exnloited at -verp lnw enot and have t-Ih- addd advantnv7e of nearly snont aneots regeneration. In the future this may find wide ma-ket occeptance, xlt it i8 lackino this -t~ nveaen-t M%North and South of the eergre-rn forest, at an average altlt-Ade of 5?5 m, lie two wide strips of semideciduous forest. These fermations are fir richer in va1uable species and less iAhospitable than the central de- nression, and they constitute the most promising forest potential of zhe 10. uptlyln- ^orrid-ors. On the outskirts of the e---tria forestrr ''1L.L Ztt15 *1 L L U 1.L 1OaL~ LLfl...LU OJ L -. -_ two hands of savannah criscrossed by corridors of commercially valuable forest*. The hand i8A narrow in the North (TUb_.gui an.d tY1-N and 'airly wide in the South (northern reaches of Bandundu, Kasai and Katanga provinces). Th roceV;Gss3 Iby wV-IIc* t; *IIGes areas eoriesvant UCC-Ih avisQidue to the IMICG-e .iL.oPr.X of man, and is a continuing one. 11. Mayumbe forest. Covering a quarter of a mdllion ha, this forest belongs to the semideciduous variety, and is rich in iuariketable species. This fact, together with its proximity to evacuation ports, have led to erouus mi.smanagement ana overexploitation oJL 't5 reeuoUrce, which are believed at nresent to be seriously depleted. Additional pressures on the -fvta-vmbe forest have arisen from population grow-n i the a-reas. Since this growth is expected to continue for some years to come at a fairly brisk pace, a serious reforestation effort should promptly bDe undertaken. 1A. Mountain torests. Easr or tne Cuvetre tne relier rises snarpiy and the character of the forest tends toward premounrtainous (1,300 m average altitude) and mountainous (1,900o mj varieties. The tree population is highly heterogeneotus and generally suitable only for local exploitation and e.onsumption . f%overnment Action 13. Althouph relatively little progress has been made of late, knowledre abouit the characteristics of Zaire's forest resources is fairly comniete owirn to the studies of INERA. It should be relatively easy to hrino these stud!es un to date and to complement them with studies concerning ANNEX 7 Page 4 the economic aspects ot torest exploitation, in view of the fact that most facilities and staff of the Forestrv Research Center at Yangambi have not experienced substantial losses or deterioration. 14. Direct government action affecting forest exploitation in recent years has been largely circumscrihed to varying the export tax rates affecting different products. The rate for log exports, which stood at 24% in 1967 after the monetarv reform, was lowered to 2?n in 1W6Q and to 6% in October 1Q69 (log exports were prohibited shortly afterwards, however). Rates on sawn timber were correspondingly lowered from 20% to 15% and 5%, and on nlvwood from 6% to 5% and 2%. Similarly to other agricultural products, a turnover tax applies to forest exnorts at a rate of 6.75% of fiscal assessment. 15. There appears to be little reason for the maintenance of export and turnover taxes on forest products, aside from their purely short run revenue effects. Their more serious impact will undoubtedly be to render forestry industries unprofitable in Zaire, especially in view of the fact that any feasible expansion in this activity will have to shift to less favorable locations in the Cuvette, with considerably higher transport costs than for the Mayumbe resources exploited until now. 16. Felling licenses are presently granted for renewable periods of one vear only.