LIBREVILLE, May 31, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Gabon will cease exporting manganese from 2029 as part of a plan to transform national industry, President Brice Oligui Nguema said in a government statement published on Saturday.

Selling manganese, which can be used in the production of stainless steel and batteries, is one of Gabon's main sources of revenue, alongside wood and oil sales.

Speaking on Friday to the council of ministers, Oligui ordered "the formal ban... from January 1, 2029, of the export of raw manganese, a strategic resource of which Gabon is the second largest producer in the world," the government statement said.

The move in the country of 2.3 million people, one of the richest in Africa, aims at developing "an ambitious industrial policy based on the local transformation of primary materials, an increase in the national workforce's competence, the mastering of technological value chains and the consolidation of tax revenues", the statement added.

Oligui, a putschist leader who overthrew the Bongo family dynasty before winning elections in April with almost 95 percent of the vote, said he was giving the sector three years to make the necessary investments for the change.

That will also involve the setting up of a public-private investment fund to support the industry, the statement added.

During the council of ministers meeting, it was also decided to ban the import of chicken meat from January 1, 2027.

Despite the country's riches, a third of Gabonese live in poverty with one in 10 suffering from a lack of food.