The new head of Gécamines, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s state mining company, said the country has missed the opportunity to leverage its dominance in the cobalt market and attract investment off the back of the metal vital for batteries in electric cars and electronics.

Gécamines chair Guy Robert Lukama told the Financial Times that Indonesia’s sudden emergence as a rival cobalt supplier was threatening the world’s biggest producer’s market position and economic development chances unless export quotas were co-ordinated.

The DRC has struggled to use its dominance to drive up prices and push companies to invest in materials processing and battery manufacturing in the country, he added, as other nations rich in the resources used in clean energy tech such as Indonesia have made headway.