Amid intensifying global competition for critical minerals — driven by supply chain restructuring and tightening export controls by resource-holding countries — the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM) and KOTRA have joined forces to address supply chain risks.
Critical minerals are strategic resources that underpin stable production across advanced industries including batteries, semiconductors, defense and future mobility. As major resource-holding countries expand export controls and geopolitical tensions deepen, rapidly securing policy and market intelligence from overseas and translating it into technical analysis and corporate support has emerged as a central challenge for national economic security.
KIGAM announced Monday that it signed an MOU with KOTRA at KOTRA's headquarters in Seoul to strengthen cooperation in the critical minerals sector.
The agreement combines KIGAM's expertise in critical minerals exploration, development and utilization with KOTRA's global trade office network and corporate support capabilities — boosting resilience against supply chain disruptions and helping domestic companies diversify their supply chains and expand overseas.
Under the MOU, the two organizations will cooperate on: sharing information on critical minerals production, exports, investment and overseas supply chain trends; exchanging data on policies, export controls and supply chain risks in major resource-holding countries; sharing information on overseas resource development projects and investment opportunities; holding seminars, forums and conducting joint research; jointly leveraging domestic and international networks and expert communities; jointly pursuing cooperation projects with overseas governments, institutions and companies, including through Official Development Assistance; and identifying and resolving supply chain difficulties faced by domestic companies.
In particular, policy and market intelligence, export control data, and investment and project information gathered by KOTRA through its overseas trade offices will be linked with KIGAM's technical and policy analysis capabilities in critical minerals.
Through this collaboration, the two organizations plan to identify supply chain risks early and develop joint response measures.
They will also step up efforts to identify overseas critical minerals projects and support domestic companies in expanding abroad.
The partners will share information on promising projects and local cooperation needs, combining KIGAM's full-cycle mineral resource technology — spanning exploration, assessment, mineral processing, smelting and recycling — with KOTRA's local networks and commercialization support to build an integrated framework covering technical review, local partner identification and market entry.
The core of the agreement lies not merely in gathering overseas field intelligence, but in connecting that intelligence to expert technical and policy analysis, supply chain crisis response and support for domestic companies.
Following the signing, the two organizations plan to develop specific cooperation tasks through working-level consultations and pursue joint projects in phases.
"Stability in the critical minerals supply chain can only be secured when accurate overseas intelligence, scientific and technological capabilities, and corporate support systems work in concert," KIGAM President Kwon Yi-kyun said. "By linking KOTRA's global network with KIGAM's full-cycle mineral resource technology, we will strengthen our capacity to respond to supply chain crises and contribute to Korean companies' entry into overseas critical minerals projects and to national resource security."
Meanwhile, KIGAM is expanding its research and international cooperation to diversify domestic and overseas critical minerals supply chains and strengthen national resource security, drawing on its full-cycle research and development capabilities spanning exploration, assessment, mineral processing, smelting and recycling.
nbgkoo@heraldcorp.com
