Britain will invest £50 million ($66 million) to expand domestic production of critical minerals, as part of efforts to reduce dependence on global supply chains and strengthen economic resilience, the government said on Monday.
The funding will support projects spanning extraction, processing and recycling of materials used in technologies such as smartphones, refrigerators and electric vehicle batteries.
The initiative comes as Western economies seek to secure supplies of critical minerals, amid concerns over the concentration of global production and processing capacity.
Industry minister Chris McDonald is expected to formally launch the programme during a visit to an industrial research hub in north-east England, where firms are developing technologies focused on metal recovery and advanced processing.
The package builds on more than £200 million already committed to the sector, according to the government.
Officials said the new funding will be divided into three main areas: £20 million for a rare earth magnet hub, £25 million for an accelerator programme to scale up projects, and up to £5 million for a platform aimed at aggregating industry demand and attracting private investment.
The move reflects growing concern over reliance on concentrated supply chains, particularly China’s dominant position in the critical minerals sector.
China accounts for around 70% of global rare earth mining and roughly 90% of processing capacity, according to industry estimates widely cited by governments and international agencies.
Critical minerals are considered essential for modern manufacturing and national security, with demand rising sharply due to the expansion of electric vehicles, renewable energy systems and advanced electronics.
Britain has already taken steps to strengthen domestic capacity, including the launch of its first commercial rare earth magnet facility in 25 years, operated by Mkango Resources’ HyProMag unit in Birmingham.
The plant uses recycled materials to produce magnets for electric motors and other applications.
The government has also pursued international partnerships with allies including the United States and South Korea, focusing on collaboration in supply chains, processing technology and investment in critical minerals infrastructure.
Officials said the latest funding is intended to accelerate domestic capability while encouraging private sector investment in a strategically important industry.
Peace is Armenia’s only reliable guarantee of security, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has said in comments in Dublin, where he also...
Hungarian authorities have recovered nearly $20 million in cash hidden in buildings and buried in forests as part of a bribery investigation into M...
U.S. President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to hold a historic trilateral meeting in She...
Iran’s Assembly of Experts has backed withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and overhauling the country’s defence doctrine, calling both steps essential to national security and deterrence.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration lifted a nationwide ground stop on Friday (13 November) after a communications failure at air traffic control centres caused chaos at airports and triggered the longest nationwide shutdown since the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
President Vladimir Putin agreed on Thursday to let European representatives join the next round of Ukraine peace talks while the United States continues to work towards what could become the largest prisoner exchange of the Russia-Ukraine war.
Microsoft struggled to restore its services on Friday after a major outage disrupted Outlook, Teams and Copilot across the United States and Asia-Pacific region.
Here's your AnewZ Technology Daily Brief for the 13th of November. This week, a Microsoft outage hit Australian agencies, Google restricted mapping data in South Korea, a lawsuit targeted advanced AI development, and Nvidia faced a leadership crisis after Jensen Huang's resignation.
Hungarian authorities have recovered nearly $20 million in cash hidden in buildings and buried in forests as part of a bribery investigation into Miklós Seszták, a former minister under ex-Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
U.S. President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to hold a historic trilateral meeting in Shenzhen on 19 November. The White House says the talks will focus on nuclear arms reductions, with Iran also on the agenda.
U.S. negotiators floated the idea of Ukraine withdrawing from the eastern Donbas region in exchange for NATO membership, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.
China is taking its space technology ambitions beyond its borders, with a major deal to build a network of 20 artificial intelligence-powered satellites for Oman.
Europe will send a team of diplomats to Ukraine peace talks rather than a single envoy, EU leaders agreed on Friday at the end of a summit in Dublin.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment