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Cash-strapped businesses increasingly are trading goods and services for everything from newspaper ads to exterminators to lobster dinners.Well beyond the days of swapping one goat for 30 chickens, business-to-business barter has gained fresh cachet during a recession marked by dried-up credit markets and slumping sales across most industries.

Barter has become a popular option for companies looking to unload inventory, boost the customer base and conserve cash.

“If a business understands the basics of barter, it is a means to have a competitive edge,” said Ken Meharg, CEO of business-to-business barter company New England Trade Inc. in Malden. “Barter can move excess inventory, generate sales and increase cash flow.”

Full Story: Tough times are ushering in the bartering economy

The Democratic Republic of Congo is trading with a massive state-owned firm based in Beijing, the China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC). They’re planning a new road which will be the first endeavor of the biggest single deal China’s ever done in Africa, worth $9 billion.

Due to be signed in Beijing shortly, it gives DR Congo $6 billion of desperately needed infrastructure — about 2,400 miles of road, 2,000 miles of railway, 32 hospitals, 145 health centers, and two universities.

In return, China gets a slice of DR Congo’s precious natural resources to feed its booming industries — 10 million tons of copper and 400,000 tons of cobalt. It’s a barter deal, what the Chinese side loves to call “win-win.” Not aid with strings attached, like Western powers have given DR Congo over the years, but pure business.