India and Brazil yesterday agreed to boost cooperation on critical minerals and rare earths, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said after talks in New Delhi with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
“The agreement on critical minerals and rare earths in a major step toward building resilient supply chains,” Modi said.
Brazil has the world’s second-largest reserves of critical minerals, which are used in everything from electric vehicles, solar panels and smartphones to jet engines and guided missiles.
Photo: AFP
India, seeking to cut its dependence on top exporter China, has been expanding domestic production and recycling while scouting for new suppliers.
“Increasing investments and cooperation in matters of renewable energies and critical minerals is at the core of the pioneering agreement that we have signed today,” Lula said.
The details of the deal were not available as of press time last night.
Nine other agreements and memoranda of understanding were finalized, touching on digital cooperation, health, entrepreneurship and other fields, an official said.
“Brazil is India’s largest trade partner in Latin America. We are committed to taking our bilateral trade beyond US$20 billion in the coming five years,” Modi said. “Our trade is not just a figure, but a reflection of trust.”
Lula, who arrived in New Delhi on Wednesday for a summit on artificial intelligence, is accompanied by a delegation of more than a dozen ministers as well as business leaders.
He was yesterday given a ceremonial welcome and paid his tributes to India’s independence hero Mahatma Gandhi, before going into the meeting with Modi.
With China holding a near-monopoly on rare earths production, some countries are seeking alternative sources.
Council on Energy, Environment and Water senior program lead Rishabh Jain said India’s growing cooperation with Brazil on critical minerals complements recent supply chain engagements with the US, France and the EU.
These partnerships grant India access to advanced technologies, finance and high-end processing capabilities, he said.
“Global South alliances are critical for securing diversified, on-ground resource access and shaping emerging rules of global trade,” Jain added.
India is the 10th-largest market for Brazilian exports, with bilateral trade topping US$15 billion last year.
Key Brazilian exports to India include sugar, crude oil, vegetable oils, cotton and iron ore.
Demand for iron ore has been driven by rapid infrastructure expansion and industrial growth in India, which is on track to become the world’s fourth-largest economy.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS