LONDON, Oct 8 (Reuters) – Chile aims to find new copper markets and expand its lithium industry as it seeks to shield its economy from a U.S-.China trade war, the mining minister of the world’s biggest copper producer said on Monday.
Baldo Prokurica also told Reuters the South American nation was considering further opening up its copper and lithium mining industry to foreign investors to capitalise on the demand for both metals from the growing electric vehicle industry.
“Chile is to electric vehicles what Saudi Arabia is to crude oil,” he said of his country, which sits on half the world’s lithium reserves.
“We are trying to further diversify our economy through the number and quality of trade agreements we have,” Prokurica said in an interview for the LME Week industry gathering in London.
As part of efforts to find new markets, he said Chile was examining its trade deal with India that he said was “quite basic but could include other products.”
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