India set to emerge as key pillar of a democratic rare-earth network: Report

New Delhi, Nov 8 (IANS) India’s rise as a credible supplier and processor, if backed by the United States, Japan, Australia, and Brazil, could lay the foundation for a diversified rare-earth market and greater geopolitical stability, a report said on Saturday.

It added that, unlike several emerging players in the rare earths race, India offers both scale and credibility.

According to a report in 'The Diplomat', India’s vast manufacturing base can absorb downstream industries – magnets, motors, batteries – that smaller rare earth producers like Australia or Brazil struggle to host,

“The summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at APEC in Gyeongju produced no grand bargain but one valuable by-product: Time. China agreed to delay for one year the latest round of rare‐earth export controls, which Washington feared could strangle defence, clean energy and semiconductor supply chains overnight. Markets cheered what they saw as a ‘truce.’ But the pause only underscores how precarious global dependence on China remains – and how urgently the world must diversify,” the report detailed.

“For the past decade, China has maintained a near-monopoly over the rare earth elements that make the modern economy run. It controls roughly 70 per cent of global mining, over 90 per cent of refining, and almost the entire production of high-performance magnets essential to electric vehicles, wind turbines, and precision-guided munitions. Each time geopolitical tension spikes, Beijing’s ability to weaponise this dominance becomes obvious,” it added.

The report stressed that the one-year reprieve offered a window of opportunity for the United States and its allies to act. The pressing question, it said, is who can move swiftly to build credible alternatives—and increasingly, that answer appears to be India.

“New Delhi has long possessed the geological ingredients. India’s beach-sand deposits contain rich reserves of monazite, bastnaesite, and other rare-earth minerals, but the country’s processing capacity and environmental rules have lagged. That is now changing. In June, India announced that it is negotiating with companies and planning a fiscal incentive scheme for domestic rare-earth magnet manufacturing, aimed at reducing reliance on China,” the report stated.

“Indian companies such as Sona Comstar, already a key global supplier for EV drivetrains, are setting up magnet production lines. State-owned Indian Rare Earths Ltd. has been tasked with expanding refining capability, and the Indian Space Research Organisation is helping adapt high-purity separation technology initially designed for satellite components,” it noted.

The report asserted that with strong political commitment and an expanding technological ecosystem, India could soon become the third pillar of a democratic rare-earth network – alongside the US and Japan.

--IANS

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