Chicago Council seminar: Advancing critical minerals partnerships in the Indo-Pacific

On 13 November, the Perth USAsia Centre hosted a one-day workshop on critical minerals partnerships, in collaboration with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.  The program was made possible through generous funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. 
 
Bringing together a targeted group of industry representatives, scholars and government officials from Australia, India, Japan and Korea, the workshop examined how Australia, the United States and other likeminded partners can work together to diversify and strengthen critical minerals supply chains.  
 
In the wide-ranging discussion, participants discussed the impact of US-China competition, the challenges of exploration, financing and processing, the need to attract a skilled workforce to the sector, and the role of partnerships like the Minerals Security Partnership.  And it was this element – partnerships – that emerged as the key takeaway of the discussion, with participants noting that wide-ranging collaboration across the Indo-Pacific was crucial to building secure supply chains and to the global energy transition.