India and US to explore joint collaboration with third countries to extract minerals: Piyush Goyal

Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal. File | Photo credit: PTI

With China dominating the trade of crucial minerals, India and the United States of America are exploring a combined partnership with third countries to obtain the minerals or necessary funds or technology to tap such resources, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry said , Piyush Goyal, early Friday in Washington. .

In India, the lack of supplies of crucial minerals for the transition to green energy has resulted in 100% import dependence on minerals such as lithium, cobalt and nickel. In June last year, Mines Minister G. Kishan Reddy had indicated that 95% of India’s copper needs are also imported. China is a major supplier for many of these products and plays a leading role in their processing and refining for numerous end applications.

Mr Goyal, during an interaction with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said crucial minerals figured in his official talks with US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on Thursday.

“This was also part of our discussions that ultimately the US and India will also have to look at the commitments of third countries. We believe it can be a commitment where third countries can become a source of capital, a source of technology or a source of critical minerals or markets,” Minister Goyal said.

“So I think the US-India partnership going forward will have a newer dimension where we will significantly increase our work with each other, but we will also look in the future to see what we can do together for the broader good of humanity. and what we could do for other parts of the world. We either benefit from them or support them in their journey,” he noted.

Stressing that Africa and Latin America have good potential to tap crucial minerals, the minister said: “Chile, for example, has good lithium reserves that can be drawn down for processing. Both the US and your universities and many innovation company startups in India are working on creating technology for batteries and storage systems. Mr. Modi had a technical roundtable that MIT had organized just two weeks ago in New York where many of these topics were discussed, and I think we are at the right time in history, coming closer together to be able helping each other and being able to collaborate with other parts of the world.”