The Secretary of Climate, Energy and Environment at Itamaraty, ambassador Maurício Lyrio, stated that Brazilian mineral policy is out of date in the face of the new global dispute for critical minerals and defended the advancement of the PL (bill) that addresses the issue in the National Congress.
According to him, Brazil has a privileged position on the international scene due to its large mineral reserves, clean energy matrix and diplomatic capacity to negotiate with different powers. However, this advantage still comes up against a regulatory framework that is considered to be poorly updated.
“There is an urgent update problem due to technological developments with a material that has not yet been reflected in Brazilian legislation,” said Lyrio, during an international seminar on critical and strategic minerals, organized by Ibram (Brazilian Mining Institute).
The ambassador stated that natural resources once again played a central role in the distribution of power between countries. The technological race and the dispute over production chains have meant that critical minerals are no longer just an economic issue and have started to occupy a strategic space in geopolitics.
Lyrio cited China as an example of a country that, since the 1980s, has adopted an aggressive policy to transform mineral reserves into a competitive advantage. Beijing managed to anticipate the importance of strategic elements, such as rare earths, and develop public policies aimed not only at extraction, but also at processing and adding value.
The secretary stated that this trend was also followed by other countries and economic blocs. He mentioned Indonesia, which has adopted more restrictive measures to encourage local mineral processing, and the EU (European Union), which has sought to reduce its external dependence through incentives for the production and refining of critical minerals.
According to Lyrio, the EU has set goals to expand its processing capacity, which shows that the international dispute is not limited to access to reserves, but also involves domination of the industrial stages of the chain.
“There is an aggressive policy by States to seek not only security of mineral supply, but also greater concentration of value addition in their territories,” he said.
For him, the sector cannot be treated as a common public policy, as it involves strategic themes for the economy, industry, technology and national security.
“It is necessary to standardize a general framework that establishes a specific policy for the sector, and not merely a band like any other in Brazilian mineral policy,” he said.
In this context, the ambassador stated that Brazil has been approached by different countries interested in establishing partnerships in the mineral area. For him, the central question is how the country will deal with this external demand without limiting itself to the role of supplier of raw materials.
PL critical minerals
The PL for critical minerals, approved by the Chamber of Deputies, awaits analysis in the Senate. The rapporteur in the Senate has not yet been defined. It is also not clear whether the project will go through committees or whether it will be analyzed on an urgent basis.
The federal government, however, is interested in speeding up the process.
The proposal approved by the Chamber creates the PNMCE (National Policy on Critical and Strategic Minerals) and the CIMCE (National Council for the Industrialization of Critical and Strategic Minerals), linked to the Presidency of the Republic.
The text will be analyzed by senators amid pressure from mining companies for adjustments to points considered sensitive, such as the power of the council, the approval of corporate operations, rules linked to exports, the obligation to invest in R&D and the maximum period for mineral research.
According to the approved version, the public authorities, through CIMCE, will be able to approve, through a screening mechanism and under the terms of regulation, changes in corporate control, relevant participation of foreign companies, access to strategic geological information, international supply contracts and operations involving mining titles linked to the Union.
The PL also provides instruments to stimulate processing, mineral transformation, industrialization and value addition in Brazil.
