Beijing has ordered Chinese investors in overseas mining projects to report their proven and prospective reserves of critical minerals, as competition with Washington is poised to escalate following Donald Trump’s inauguration as United States president next week.
On Monday, the Ministry of Commerce expanded the list of mineral resources that Chinese mining enterprises operating overseas must declare, specifically asking for information about rare earths, titanium ore, zircon and tantalum ore.
Chinese companies operating overseas now need to declare more than 41 types of mineral products, compared with 32 before. One of the additional items is antimony, which China stopped exporting in October.
Non-metallic critical minerals on the list include new crystalline graphite, amorphous graphite, boron and fluorite.
The move was based on a recent revision of the Statistical Rules on Foreign Direct Investment, issued by the ministry, the National Bureau of Statistics and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.
The world’s second-largest economy has rich deposits of minerals like rare earths, which are vital for the production of smartphones, electric vehicles and defence systems, but is also heavily reliant on imports of key metals such as lithium, which is widely used in electric vehicle batteries.
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