Data-center law in Republic of the Congo

Loi n° 33-2023 du 17 novembre 2023 portant gestion durable de l'environnement en République du Congo

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Article 1 fixes the legal framework of the national policy on environmental management in keeping with sustainable-development principles. The Law defines a classified installation as one exploited or held by any natural or legal, public or private person, that may present dangers or inconveniences for neighbourhood convenience, health, safety, public cleanliness, agriculture, nature conservation, or the environment.

Article 50 subjects the opening, extension, substantial modification, or transfer of a first-class installation to authorization by the minister in charge of the environment, after validation of an environmental and social impact study; Article 51 subjects a second-class installation to authorization by the environment director-general after validation of an impact notice; a decree in the Council of Ministers sets the classification procedure and nomenclature, and a third-class installation is subject only to an attestation after a technical visit (referenced at Article 52).

Article 56 lets the environment administration suspend a classified installation's activities in case of a duly established major and certain risk to health or the environment. Article 119 creates a public establishment, the national environment agency, to assist the Government in implementing environmental policy.

Article 144 punishes carrying out a development project without an environmental and social impact study or notice, where one is required, by a fine of ten million to twenty million CFA francs. Article 147 punishes operating a first- or second-class classified installation without the required authorization by a fine of two hundred fifty thousand to ten million CFA francs.

Article 155 repeals Law No. 003/91 of 23 April 1991 on the Protection of the Environment and all contrary earlier provisions.

Source: Full text of law

Loi n°6-2003 du 18 janvier 2003 portant Charte des investissements

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Article 1 guarantees any natural or legal person, of any nationality, freedom to undertake an agricultural, mining, industrial, forestry, artisanal, commercial, or service activity on Congolese territory, subject to the laws and regulations of the Republic.

Titles 2 to 9 commit the State to guarantee legal and judicial security, adhere to the OHADA treaty and international investment agreements, associate the private sector in economic policy, protect intellectual property under the African Intellectual Property Organization's rules, and improve investment data and statistics.

Article 15 has the State establish a national investment commission to inform and advise investors and to grant enterprises the benefit of the Charter's advantages (agrément), with the agrément regime's measures, procedures, obligations, and sanctions left to implementing regulation rather than stated in the Charter itself.

Article 38 lets a previously granted regime or convention be renegotiated, at the Government's or the enterprise's initiative, to adapt its fiscal and customs clauses to the Charter. Article 39 leaves the Charter's implementing modalities and the investment commission's organization and functioning to further texts.

Source: Full text of law

Loi n° 24-2017 du 9 juin 2017 relative à la création des zones économiques spéciales à la détermination de leur régime et de leur organisation

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The Law creates special economic zones as delimited areas within the national territory constituting priority development zones, administered by a zone authority. Article 20 subjects investors approved for a zone to a fiscal regime derogating from ordinary law. A zone developer's profits from developing land and operating infrastructure are exempt from corporate income tax for fifteen years.

After-tax profits a developer draws from the zone are taxed on transferable-securities income at a reduced rate of five percent and are exempt from the tax on fund transfers on expatriation. Where a developer reinvests profits after the fifteen-year exemption period, a fifth of the reinvested sums is deductible from the corporate-tax base for five years, and a further five-year exemption is granted where the reinvestment reaches a third of the investment.

The transfer of a developer's land rights to enterprises is subject to a reduced five percent rate of registration duties and land-advertisement taxes. The Law sets out separate, further fiscal and customs measures for enterprises installed within a zone.

Source: Full text of law