Western critical minerals projects are being hamstrung by public funding gaps, impeding their ability to challenge China’s chokehold on materials essential to tech and defence manufacturing, according to a new report.
According to the SAFE Center for Critical Minerals Strategy, an NGO, the west’s ability to boost its supply chains now hinges less on access to plentiful geological resources than on addressing “a persistent financing gap” from public entities.
Critical minerals often require 20 to 30 years of investment and operating certainty, without which private capital is reluctant to commit. Stronger commitments from government-backed lenders would encourage private investors and banks to back critical minerals projects, the report said.
“Governments have spent the last several years agreeing that critical minerals dependency is a strategic problem. The harder work now is proving that public finance institutions can actually get capital into the ground, into processing facilities, and into the hands of developers fast enough to matter,” said Abigail Hunter, executive director of the Center for Critical Minerals Strategy.
Read the full story: “Funding gaps hobble western critical mineral objectives, says report”
