Finance ministers from the Group of Seven nations will meet in Washington on January 12 to discuss rare earths supplies, three sources familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.
The nations comprises United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan.
One of the sources added that price floors for rare earths would be a point of discussion, among other critical mineral topics.
G7 countries, except Japan, are heavily or exclusively reliant on China for a range of materials from rare earth magnets to battery metals. In June last year, the G7 agreed on an action plan to secure their supply chains and boost their economies.
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Officials began discussing price floors last year to make investments in critical minerals outside China economically viable. The United States was the first to set a minimum price in a contract for domestic rare earths supplies last year.
Rare earths (or rare earth elements) are a group of 17 special metals found in the Earth’s crust. They’re called rare not because they don’t exist, but because they are hard to find in large, pure amounts.
REUTERS