They may be found in small quantities, but the rare earth metal and mineral sector is turning out to be a big area of cooperation between India and Japan.
Indian news reports suggest that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is expected to sign an inter-governmental agreement with Japan when he travels to Tokyo in November. The pact will kick off the joint development of rare earth metals in India.
Coming barely five months after Tokyo announced that India had agreed to provide Japan with a stable supply of rare earth minerals, the PM’s visit is keenly awaited. Watching from the sidelines obviously will be China, the country that currently enjoys a monopoly over rare earth supplies to the rest of the globe.
It should be even more interesting because the new round of Indian-Japanese rare-earth cooperation started after a spat began between Japan and China some months ago. Both nations are in a face-off with each other over the controversial ownership of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands.
Source: MetalMiner