Canada, South Korea seek deeper cooperation on critical minerals

By Steve Scherer

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol on Friday agreed to deepen cooperation on essential minerals utilized in electrical autos (EVs) batteries as each nations search to chop emissions to combat local weather change.

Yoon visited London for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth, after which New York in his first U.S. journey to attend the U.N. Common Meeting, earlier than arriving in Canada on Thursday. On Friday, Yoon met Trudeau in Ottawa, after which they each spoke to reporters.

“Yoon and I mentioned methods to collaborate in quite a lot of areas, together with important minerals, batteries for electrical autos, and rising applied sciences, together with AI (synthetic intelligence),” Trudeau informed reporters.

Canada has most of the essential minerals – like lithium, cobalt and nickel – that at the moment are used to make batteries for EVs, and the federal government is within the means of searching for to assist producers and processors scale up manufacturing.

“Canada, as a worldwide chief within the manufacturing of minerals, and Korea, a serious semiconductor and battery maker – every play essential roles in world provide chains,” Yoon mentioned via an interpreter.

“The governments and companies of our two nations will work collectively for the mineral sources sector to construct a cooperative structure… to answer the shocks ensuing from the altering world order,” Yoon added.

China is presently by far the dominant world provider of essential minerals utilized in EVs. Yoon mentioned it was strategically vital for each nations to seek out an alternate provider.

Canada and South Korea are already cooperating within the sector, Trudeau identified.

In March, Stellantis, the guardian of Jeep and Chrysler, mentioned it could construct an EV battery plant in a three way partnership with South Korea’s LG Power Resolution in Windsor, throughout the border from Detroit.

In a joint assertion, the 2 nations mentioned they agreed to deepen their “strategic partnership on provide chain resiliency” and would search to place themselves as “aggressive gamers within the essential minerals provide chain and battery and EV worth chains”.

To that finish, each nations agreed to develop a memorandum of understanding within the coming months to “help clear vitality transition and vitality safety, together with with respect to essential minerals”.

(Reporting by Steve Scherer; Modifying by Sandra Maler)