South Korean Government Seeking to Reduce Dependence on China for Core Minerals

According to Korean media, in order to get rid of its dependence on overseas sources for 33 core minerals such as copper and tungsten that need to be managed from the perspective of economic security, South Korea will start ensuring overseas supply of core minerals such as lithium and rare earth next year while beefing up  recycling of waste minerals. As of 2021, Chile dominated 82% of South Korea's lithium carbonate imports, while 97% of cobalt sulphate imported by South Korea came from China. The goal of South Korea’s centralised management of strategic core minerals is to reduce its current dependence on imports of 10 strategic minerals from specific countries from 80% to 50% by 2030. At the same time, South Korea has also decided to increase the recovery rate of these minerals from 2% to 20%. According to data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), it is estimated that by 2040, the demand for key minerals in high-tech industries will increase dozens of times. For countries like South Korea who lack ore resources, the stability of raw material supply structure will directly determine the development quality of high-tech industries in the future. With the rapid promotion of new energy technologies in recent years, various countries will step up their strategic integration of rare earth resources.