According to findjobdescriptions, the Republic of Congo occupies a fairly privileged place among African developing countries. It benefits from both its key position between the Atlantic Ocean and the internal states of Chad and the Central African Republic (especially the Congo Oubangui rivers have always represented the traditional gateway to this vast area of the continent), and the various and often abundant natural resources (including oil). Already the French, during the colonial occupation, stimulated the Congolese economy, opening important communication arteries, introducing modern agricultural techniques in crops destined for export, starting the mining exploitation and the huge forest heritage, and chose Brazzaville as capital of French Equatorial Africa. After independence, the various governments gradually succeeded each other always maintained good and close relations with the former colonial power and implemented an economic structure of a mixed type. Thus, alongside the many nationalizations carried out, such as in transport and public services, in the mining sectors, energy and wood, in the financial and banking sectors and alongside the establishment of various state bodies for the development and control of the main agricultural products, other economic sectors, especially the oil sector, enjoyed greater openness to foreign or private investors. In general, the economic situation, despite being able to count on solid and growing bases of natural resources, denotes financial imbalances and an opaque management of revenues, especially oil, so serious as to have induced the International Monetary Fund to ask for explanations and to suspend credit to the country in certain periods. Thanks to the increase in the price of crude oil and the good relations maintained with France, the United States and Middle Eastern countries, the Republic of Congo recorded in the early years of the century. XXI GDP growth which in 2008 was US $ 10,774 million; per capita GDP in the same year stood at US $ 2,952.
HISTORY: FRENCH SOVEREIGNTY
At the end of the century. XV was, with the name of Loango, a tributary province of the king of Congo. Later it regained autonomy and its rulers (Ma Loango) devoted themselves with considerable profit to the slave trade, which they brought to the coast where they were bought and embarked by European merchants. In the sec. XVIII France began to take an interest in this area of the coast; in 1766 a French Catholic mission settled in Loango and in 1839 Bouet-Willaumez settled on the estuary of the river; ten years later Libreville was founded and in 1870 the survey of the coastal regions and the Ogoué and Alima basins began, mainly by Savorgnan di Brazzà, committed to countering the expansionist designs of Leopold II of Belgium in the Congo Basin. On 10 September 1880 Brazza concluded a treaty of friendship with King Makoko, while in 1883 the lieutenant Cordier (who had reached the Congo River preceding Stanley) obtained the recognition of French sovereignty from the king. Meanwhile, a law of 17 December 1882 established the colony of the French Congo, of which Brazza was appointed first commissioner on 2 February 1883. At the stage of regulation of the borders with the independent state of Congo by Leopoldo II, with Portugal and Germany, which settled in Cameroon, followed the period of pacification and organization of the colony (1885-1920) which took the name of Moyen Congo and became, in 1910, one of the four territories of French Equatorial Africa. For the development of the colony the construction of the Brazzaville-Mayombè railway began in 1921, completed only in 1934 with an impressive toll of human lives. Between 1921 and 1941 prophetic-religious movements arose and spread in the territory (such as those of Simon Kimbangu, Simon-Pierre MPadi and above all André Matsua) which, by preaching disobedience to the colonial authorities and the expulsion of the whites, caused serious unrest and harsh repression. After the Second World War, the French Congo followed the stages of political evolution traced by the metropolis with the French Union (1946), with the Loi Cadre (1956) and with the French Community (1958), opting for the status of republic autonomous, within the framework of the aforementioned community, on November 28, 1958. On August 15, 1960, Congo-Brazzaville gained full independence as the Republic of Congo. A coup d’etat overthrew President Foulbert Youlou in August 1963 and brought Alphonse Massemba-Débat to power, which gave the country a new Constitution, approved on December 8, 1963. But a subsequent internal political crisis ended in 1968 with the establishment at the top of a revolutionary National Council, chaired by the army chief Marien Ngouabi, who became head of the State on December 31, 1968.
