(Bloomberg) -- President Felix Tshisekedi appointed Judith Tuluka Suminwa as the next prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the first female to hold the role in the world’s second-biggest copper producer. 

She was previously a minister of state for planning, the presidency said on X Monday. She replaces Sama Lukonde, who’s been in office since 2021. 

“I know that the task is great and the challenges immense,” the presidency’s post quoted Suminwa as saying. “But with the support of the president of the republic and of everyone, we will get there.”

Suminwa will lead Congo’s new government following Tshisekedi’s election in December, which he won in a landslide. While Congo’s economy is expanding rapidly as the copper industry booms, an explosion of uncontrolled conflicts in the country’s east has displaced more than 7 million people.  

Suminwa studied at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles and the Facultes Universitaires Catholiques de Mons and previously worked in United Nations agencies and in Congo’s government,according to her government biography. 

(Updates with comment from Suminwa in third paragraph.)

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