Investors returning to Africa’s copper region

Sheets of copper cathode are pictured at BHP Billiton's Escondida, - fILE PIC

MINING investors are stampeding back into a region many had seemed determined to leave.

Straddling the border of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, a vast forested area roughly the size of Portugal contains one of the world’s richest caches of minerals: copper for wires and cables, and cobalt for rechargeable batteries.