South Korea and Brazil Collaborate on Rare Earth Supply Chain

The South Korean government has announced a partnership with Brazil to establish a sustainable supply chain for critical minerals, including rare earths, that extends beyond securing stable supplies to include local processing and product manufacturing.

Kang Yu-jung, the chief spokesperson for the Blue House, stated in a written briefing on July 28 that this agreement was reached during President Lee Jae-myung's state visit to Brazil, resulting in a joint statement on critical strategic minerals between South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and Brazil's Ministry of Mines and Energy.

The joint statement was adopted as an annex to the South Korea-Brazil joint declaration and is reflected in Article 12 of the declaration.

The core objective of the joint statement is to build a resilient and diversified supply chain for critical minerals, including rare earths.

This initiative aims to reduce dependency on specific countries or regions while processing minerals locally in Brazil to create added value, contributing to the mutual prosperity of both nations.

Both countries agreed that critical and strategic minerals play a vital role in energy transition, digital transformation, advanced technology utilization, and sustainable economic development.

The joint statement emphasizes the importance of preserving each country's sovereignty and policy autonomy during the mineral resource development process. It reflects a commitment to cooperate in a mutually beneficial manner while respecting Brazil's resource sovereignty and decision-making authority regarding industrial policy.

This marks a shift from the previous model of simply extracting minerals in Brazil for export to South Korea, aiming instead to establish a collaborative model that contributes to local industrial development, job creation, and technology accumulation.

The two nations also highlighted the importance of building a sustainable value chain that encompasses the midstream and downstream sectors of critical minerals. They agreed to expand cooperation from the refining and smelting stages, which convert minerals into industrial materials like lithium hydroxide, to the production of batteries and advanced industrial products using processed minerals.

South Korea aims to secure a stable supply chain for critical minerals by leveraging its advanced manufacturing and mineral processing technologies, while Brazil seeks to enhance local value by combining its abundant resources with technology and investment, creating a complementary cooperation model.

The two governments plan to identify specific investment opportunities for technology exchange, joint ventures, and value creation. They also intend to establish intergovernmental cooperation channels and institutional frameworks to support these efforts continuously.

Kang stated, "South Korea and Brazil will work to establish a systematic cooperation framework to explore concrete collaboration and investment opportunities for technology exchange and value creation."