Industry Minister Sarah Jones will sign a new critical minerals partnership with Saudi Arabia as part of her visit to the Future Minerals Forum in Riyadh this week – the most significant critical minerals event in the Middle East and North Africa region.
The minister will lead a trade mission of 16 UK critical minerals companies including Cornish Lithium and Beowulf Mining to the forum, where they will be exhibiting at the UK Pavilion and showcasing their expertise in the sector to potential partners and customers.
The Saudi partnership comes as the government continues to develop its new Critical Minerals Strategy for launch in 2025. The strategy will focus on boosting international collaboration with key partners to bolster the UK’s supply chains and national security, supporting economic growth with new jobs and opportunities – an integral part of the government’s Plan for Change – and turbocharging modern sectors such as AI and clean energy.
The partnership will strengthen UK cooperation with Saudi Arabia in developing secure and resilient critical minerals supply chains, attracting Saudi inward investment into the UK and creating new opportunities for UK companies to export their industry expertise to Saudi Arabia.
Critical minerals are not only essential for a wide range of everyday items like smartphones, laptops and washing machines, but also to delivering economic growth and powering the UK’s modern sectors like AI and clean energy.
They are vital materials for building the data centres needed to train and develop AI systems, as well as manufacturing the semiconductor chips which are needed for AI technology like computing power, data processing and forecasting.
Ensuring the UK has a secure supply of critical minerals will also play a key role in delivering the government’s Industrial Strategy, due to be published this year, as many of the Strategy’s key growth sectors like advanced manufacturing and clean energy depend on a steady supply of minerals for the products they make, such as electric cars and wind turbines.
Speaking at the Future Minerals Forum, Industry Minister Sarah Jones is expected to say: “Critical minerals are increasingly vital to our economy, as we turbocharge AI, clean energy and new technologies. In the global race for economic growth, and in an increasingly uncertain world, the UK must secure supplies of these critical minerals.
“That’s why this government is developing a Critical Minerals Strategy. And it’s why we are forging new partnerships with our allies like Saudi Arabia to secure our minerals supply chains for the long-term.
“Our Critical Minerals Strategy will underpin our Industrial Strategy by giving our cutting-edge sectors the materials they need. Mining and processing more in the UK, leading the way with recycling metals and building alliances round the world will underpin plans to ensure we can deliver demand which is set to quadruple by 2040.”
While in Riyadh, the minister will hold a bilateral meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Industry and Mineral Resources Minister, Bandar al-Khorayef, and take part in a ministerial roundtable with key players from across the sector, before signing the Memorandum of Understanding.
The visit comes as UK and GCC trade negotiators are driving forward talks for a dynamic free trade agreement this week. A new trade deal could increase bilateral trade with the Gulf, including Saudi Arabia, by 16%, adding an extra £8.6bn a year to trade in the long run.
Full list of companies joining the trade mission:
- Beowulf
- Cornish Lithium
- Cornish Metals
- Cornwall Mining Alliance
- Dendra
- Deswick
- Edge
- Gravity Mining
- GSA Environmental
- Headland Archaeology
- Next Generation SCM
- Project Blue
- Sensoteq
- SFA Oxford
- UMS Group
- Westcountry Minerals
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