Democratic Republic of Congo hopes to set up a scheme to certify columbite-tantalite [coltan] produced within its borders in 2009, the country's Deputy Mines Minister Victor Kasongo said. The illegal traffic of the rare metal, used in mobile phone chips…helped fuel a 1998-2003 war and resulting humanitarian crisis in the central African country…But a new G8-backed and German-financed pilot initiative aimed at creating a mineral fingerprint for coltan could soon help developing countries trace ore that is illegally exported and boost their profits from legal exports. Kasongo said he hoped a global certification process aimed at ethically-minded consumers would follow. "All the large companies are fighting for this. They'll be able to display a certificate to prove fair trade…" he said.