BRALINA IN ZAÏRE RECAPTURES
MARKET LEADERSHIP
During the rainy season
some 80,000 cubic metres
of water per second rush
through the River Zaïre.
The river forms the border
between the two countries
of Congo and Zaïre and also
separates their respective
capitals of Brazzaville and
Kinshasa.
Kinshasa, seen from the river
that borders on Congo
Brazzaville.
22
Congo and Zaïre are the only two
countries in the world where you can
see one country's capital from the
other. The same is almost true of the
Heineken breweries as well, since
they are located more or less a
stone's throw apart.
So close and yet such a world of
difference. The two countries differ
in many respects; just compare, for
instance, the population and the size
of the country. Zaïre is four and a half
times bigger than France. As the
crow flies, it is 2,800 kilometres from
the capital Kinshasa to the country's
eastern border, a distance compara
ble to Amsterdam-Moscow.
Shipping beer from Kinshasa to,
say, a city in the north of the country
is mainly a matter of being patient. A
shipment may sometimes be under
way for a month, without knowing
exactly how far the shipment has
got. More than four months ago
Bralima bought a new bottle washer
for the brewery in Bukavu, in the
east of the country. That machine
was loaded on a truck in Mombasa in
Kenya for transport to the Bukavu
brewery. If everything is going well,
the shipment is still somewhere in
the interior; no-one has any idea of
its exact location. An employee of the
logistics department points to the
map of Zaïre. "Take a look at this
map. It seems as if the big cities are
linked together by roads, but in reali
ty you come to a standstill ten kilo
metres out of town, because the
roads no longer exist. So we are
dependent on river transport." That
is the reason why the brewery has its
own quay on the river, close to the
port of Kinshasa. At this quay the
ships are loaded with raw materials
destined for the breweries in the
interior.
In the economic field, too, there
are differences between Congo and
Zaïre. The former French colony is
certainly not faring well from an eco
nomic point of view, but the country
seems less poor than Zaïre, which
was once a Belgian colony. Perhaps
because of Congo's Communist past,
the differences between rich and
poor in that country are not as mark
ed as in Zaïre.
COUNTING MONEY
Anyone visiting Kinshasa in 1996, a
city whose population is conserva-
