Nam-ki Hong “Increase the stockpiling of rare metals to 180 days and expand additional items”

Site visit to Korea’s first neodymium production company and the Public Procurement Service’s stockpile base

“Customized response by selecting 200 security items”

(Sejong = Yonhap News) Reporter Kwak Min-seo and Kim Da-hye = Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Strategy and Finance Hong Nam-ki announced on the 24th, “We will increase the stockpiling of rare metals up to 180 days as soon as possible and consider additional expansion of stockpiled items.”

Deputy Prime Minister Hong made the following statement after visiting the stockpile base of the Daejeon Regional Procurement Service and inspecting the stockpiling status of strategic materials.

Currently, we are stockpiling rare metals for 30 to 100 days, but we plan to increase this to 60 to 180 days.

Deputy Prime Minister Hong added, “Through the designation of emergency supply and demand control materials, we will expand the stockpiling target from the current metal-centered to materials closely related to people’s lives.”

The Public Procurement Service is currently stockpiling 220,000 tons of 6 types of non-ferrous metals (55.1 days’ supply), 233,000 tons of 9 types of rare metals (40.2 days’ supply), and 150 million masks.

The Public Procurement Service releases some quantities (200 billion to 300 billion won per year) to small and medium-sized enterprises in addition to long-term stockpiles in case of emergency.

Deputy Prime Minister Hong said, “After the COVID-19 crisis, the global supply chain weakened and damaged, raising concerns and awareness about the safety net of the global supply chain (GVC). “He said.

“We will select 200 key economic and security items in the near future and respond to supply and demand in a customized way,” he said.

The government has selected magnesium, tungsten, neodymium, and lithium hydroxide as priority management targets and is seeking countermeasures such as enhancing domestic production capacity, strategic stockpiling, and diversifying import sources.

Separately, an early warning system is operated to preemptively identify the risk of supply and demand for 3,000 to 4,000 items with high external dependence.

Deputy Prime Minister Hong said, “The Public Procurement Service and the Kwanghae Mining Corporation are stockpiling some of the 20 most managed items, but they need to play a more active role in order to fulfill the functions of supply chain safety devices.” emphasized that it should be used as

On the same day, Deputy Prime Minister Hong also visited KSM Metals, a producer of rare earth metals such as neodymium in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province.

KSM Metals is a company established in June with the goal of producing rare earth metals such as neodymium metal, a material for electric vehicle motors, and titanium alloys and powders used for aviation and medical purposes. It aims to operate 5,000 tons of production facilities per year from July next year.

This company is the first to produce neodymium metal, which is one of the 20 priority management items and is an essential neodymium permanent magnet material for the production of electric vehicles, in Korea.

The government is planning to support KSM Metals, which has been selected as a cooperative model between supply and demand companies, with R&D funds and special regulations in a package.

Deputy Prime Minister Hong said, “It has the effect of stably securing scarce resources by attracting investment from Australia, a major producer of rare earths, and is an exemplary model for establishing a domestic self-reliance basis for key economic and security items such as facilitating follow-up production linkage with domestic U-turn companies in the future. I’m looking forward to becoming an in-model,” he said.

If the cooperative model is successfully implemented, the government expects to be able to meet 30% of the market demand in Korea by producing 150 billion won worth of neodymium metal and permanent magnets by 2025. Currently, it is entirely dependent on imports.

moment@yna.co.kr

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