EU-Namibia business forum strengthens cooperation in GH2 and critical raw materials

Namibia will no longer export unprocessed mineral products, President Hage Geingob has told the recent EU-Namibia Business Forum held in Belgium, part of the African country’s bid to create more local jobs, more local value and to boost domestic industrialization efforts.
Geingob’s statement came after, earlier this year, Namibia banned the export of unprocessed lithium and rare earth minerals as it seeks to profit from growing global demand for metals used in renewable energy. The decision is driven by the country’s ambitions to become a manufacturing hub for battery metals key to the global transition to clean energy, which will, however, require huge investments in infrastructure to support processing facilities, according to mining executives attending the EU-Namibia Business Forum. Last year Namibia, endowed with significant deposits of lithium, vital for renewable energy storage, became the first African country to sign a deal with the EU to supply the bloc with green hydrogen and minerals needed for clean energy technologies.
Hosted under the theme ‘Mobilizing Quality Investment and Value Addition for Green Growth in the EU-Namibia partnership,’ the EU-Namibia Business Forum focused on green hydrogen and sustainable critical raw materials value chains. Mining executives attending the event lauded Namibia for its investor-friendly policies and renewable energy resources, but said significant investment, most notably in infrastructure, was needed before it could produce battery-ready metals. According to analysts, sparsely populated Namibia, one of the largest and driest countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, has huge potential for solar and wind energy projects, key factors in the production of battery minerals. The EU has sought to forge partnership with Namibia and other resource-rich African countries in bid to reduce its dependence on China for rare earth minerals, which are used to make batteries for mobile phones, electric cars and other technology.