The state-owned Export-Import Bank and LS Cable plan to cooperate in domestic production of permanent magnets.
High-tech, but low mining: South Korea wants to become less dependent on imports of critical raw materials and has now taken a further step in this direction. To strengthen the domestic supply chains for rare earths, the state-owned Export-Import Bank of Korea (Eximbank) wants to cooperate with the Korean cable manufacturer LS Cable & System and its Asia-focused subsidiary LS Eco Energy, as reported by The Korea Herald, among others.
In this context, Eximbank intends to probe the financing of LS Cable’s initiative to establish a value chain for rare earth permanent magnets, which are required for technologies such as wind energy and electromobility. As we reported, the cable manufacturer is planning a new production facility with the German magnet manufacturer Vacuumschmelze for the high-tech components, of which over 90 percent are currently made in China. LS Cable and its subsidiaries are investing roughly $528 million to ramp up the production of the necessary rare earth alloys, writes The Korea Herald.
In addition, Eximbank plans to launch a new fund in the third quarter of this year to help Korean companies stabilize their supply chains, the newspaper adds. The fund will be supported by government-guaranteed bonds and endowed with more than $3.7 billion this year.
More on South Korea and raw material supply chains: In May we reported on how a South Korean company secured the rights to mines in Vietnam, which has enormous rare earth deposits that have hardly been mined to date. Meanwhile, the South Korean steel giant Posco is also involved in developing new supply chains for permanent magnets. The East Asian high-tech country is also entering into more and more international collaborations in the raw materials sector.
Photo: iStock/Michael Ien Cohen
