Data show that South Korea’s current rare metal reserves are seriously insufficient, making manufacturing companies continue to escalate concerns about raw material shortages.
In South Korea’s only national-level rare metal reserve base, as of the end of May this year, the average reserve of 13 rare metals in the base was only 42 days, far below the target value. Among them, the lithium reserve is only a short period of 5.8 days.
The reason is that South Korea has tightened its budget this year, and the allocation for purchasing rare metals has decreased by more than 20% compared with last year.
However, the price of rare metals is fluctuating violently, and the market price of lithium has risen again recently.
According to the analysis, under the general trend of environmental protection such as electric vehicles and solar power generation, if South Korea cannot find a suitable countermeasure, the shortage of rare metals may become a major risk factor affecting the development of related industries in South Korea.
