* Congo says population doubling every 23 years
* Minister urges diversification into agriculture
* Re-basing of economy planned to update GDP measure
By David Lewis
KINSHASA, Oct 3 (Reuters) - Democratic Republic of Congo must rapidly diversify its economy to create jobs for its rapidly-growing population, the country's planning minister said on Monday.
Congo is a treasure trove of minerals but the Central African giant of 71 million people has been crippled by decades of misrule and years of conflict. It will hold its second post-war elections next month with President Joseph Kabila facing some ten rivals seeking to tap into simmering frustrations.
"Our population growth is a challenge and a threat. Our population is doubling every 23 years," Olivier Kamitatu said during a presentation at a conference on mining, power and infrastructure in Kinshasa.
"We know what has happened in North Africa - revolutions are born from the lack of jobs and the frustrations of the youth," Kamitatu said of the "Arab Spring" movements that removed leaders in Tunisia and Egypt this year.
Kamitatu said Congolese women had an average six children each and the population of the sprawling capital Kinshasa was set to double from 10 million to 20 million in 15 years.
He said 600,000 young people were entering Congo's employment-starved economy every year, and that figure would soon rise to one million.
"We have to diversify our economy towards agriculture," said Kamitatu, warning that the mining sector did not create enough employment to meet the challenge.
Congo's major exports include gold, copper, cobalt, wood products and crude oil. Kamitatu did not say what Congo was doing to launch the diversification into agriculture, or provide any details on timing.
Kabila's government is under pressure to convince voters that he has done enough over the last five years of relative peace, though infrastructure across the vast nation is still poor, corruption rampant and investors say the business environment remains one of the world's toughest.
Tensions have already surfaced in the run-up to the Nov. 28 poll. Last month authorities in Kinshasa put a temporary ban on political protests after at least one person was killed and several wounded in clashes in the street.
Kamitatu said the 2012 budget was based on assumed economic growth of six percent but added the government would seek to achieve one percentage point more to try and dent the figure of 71 percent of the population living in severe poverty.
He also said Congo would carry out a statistical re-basing of its economy, an exercise typically launched in Africa to better reflect new growth sectors such as telecoms or banking and the large informal economies in many African states.
"With the help of the IMF we are going to recalculate the GDP, which will increase by 60 percent," he said, putting new estimates for the size of the economy closer to ${esc.dollar}20 billion than the current figure of ${esc.dollar}14 billion.
He did not say when the re-basing would take place. Ghana underwent the same review last year with a similarly spectacular upwards revision in its output figures.
While the move is a purely statistical measure with no direct bearing on the real economy, Kamitatu said it would help both the government and the private sector to have more up-to-date data on which to base their decisions. (Editing by Mark John)
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