NAIROBI- China's curbs on exports of germanium products will benefit prices and "create more value for the Democratic Republic of Congo", state miner Gecamines said on Wednesday, as it readies a new unit to produce materials for the manufacturing of semiconductors in September.

"We will produce germanium that's unavailable for the market," Gecamines' chairman Guy Robert Lukama told Reuters.

Congo is the world's top cobalt supplier and Africa's biggest copper producer.

(Reporting by Felix Njini, writing by Clara Denina, Editing by Alex Richardson)