India & Australia looking forward to increasing cooperation in critical minerals sector: Goyal

New Delhi: India is in talks with Australia on critical minerals which can be used in batteries for electric vehicles (EVs), said the commerce and industry minister, Piyush Goyal on Saturday. He said that India has a scarcity of critical minerals, which goes into battery making and Australia has huge reserves which they do not process and manufacture. At present, those minerals are being imported by different countries from Australia to develop their manufacturing base.

India & Australia have reached a major milestone in working towards investment

"Going forward, we would need those minerals for our EVs. We have discussed. It was also discussed at the prime minister's level," Goyal said when asked about areas of cooperation. India and Australia have reached a major milestone in working towards investment in critical mineral projects to develop supply chains between the two countries.

Joshi & King held bilateral talks & identified 5 target points

Union minister for coal and mines Pralhad Joshi and Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Madeleine King held bilateral talks on Friday. He announced the partnership has identified five target projects including, two lithium and three cobalt to undertake detailed due diligence, according to a mines ministry statement. On one electricity grid, he said that PM Modi has articulated a vision of one earth one sun and one grid.

"We are already in dialogue with UAE, Saudi Arabia and Singapore and we would like to have a dialogue with Australia so that we can expand our grid connectivity and look at moving towards one grid so that when sun rises in Australia, they can share their energy with us and in different hours when we have surplus energy, we can share it with Australia meeting each other's peak load," Goyal said.

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