Business
Jamaica to benefit greatly from new discovery of rare earth metals
Discovery could help Jamaica challenge China.
Jamaica may be able to benefit from newly found deposits of rare-earth elements that are key ingredients for smartphones, computers and numerous other high-tech goods, the Caribbean island’s top mining official said Tuesday.
Science, Technology, Energy & Mining Minister Philip Paulwell said Japanese researchers believe they have found “high concentrations of rare-earth elements” in the country’s red mud, or bauxite residue.
China is now the world’s main supplier of rare-earth elements, which are minerals that play a critical role in making products from basic communication devices to high-tech military weaponry. Worried by that dominance, manufacturers around the globe have been spurring searches for other sources that could be profitably mined.
In a statement to Jamaica’s Parliament, Paulwell said researchers from Japan’s Nippon Light Metal Co. Ltd. believe rare-earth elements can be efficiently extracted in Jamaica, where a once-flourishing bauxite industry has fallen on hard times.
Paulwell touted the discovery as a potentially significant boon for the Caribbean island’s chronically sputtering economy.
“We are at the starting line of an opportunity that has the potential to redefine Jamaica’s economic prospects in a positive way,” he told lawmakers. “… The government of Jamaica perceives the extraction of the rare-earth elements that are present in Jamaica to be an exciting new opportunity to earn much needed foreign exchange and create jobs.”
A pilot program will establish the scope of any potential commercial project on Jamaica. The environmental and planning agency has already authorized the pilot program but other government agencies still need to examine it.
