WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Group of Seven finance ministers agreed to keep a united front and coordinate their short-term response to China’s export controls on rare earths and to diversify suppliers, European Economic Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said on Thursday.
Speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington, Dombrovskis said China now dominated the global supply chains for rare earths with 80-90% of them coming from China.
“It was clear that G7 partners have shared concerns about those new extensive Chinese export controls, expanding both the scope of minerals covered, but also in terms of covering the value chain and having quite extensive extraterritorial provisions,” Dombrovskis said.
“We agreed on one hand to coordinate this work and our engagements with Chinese counterparts to seek some short-term solutions,” he said.
“But also, more conceptually, it’s clear that we need to continue the work, which is not new, on diversification and resilience of our supply chains,” he said.
(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
