Astana, Jan 5 (SPUTNIK/UNI) Kazakhstan may join the ranks of world leaders in terms of rare earth metal reserves in the coming years, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said in an interview out on Monday.
"Demand for critical materials will grow in the next five years; it will double. This opens a new window of opportunity for Kazakhstan. It is quite likely that we will join the ranks of world leaders in terms of reserves of rare earth minerals," Tokayev told the Kazakh newspaper Turkistan.
The Central Asian nation has been developing cooperation with the United States, China, Russia, South Korea, Japan, and some European union states to strengthen its position in this strategically important field, the president added.
In mid-November, Tokayev suggested that Central Asian states should consolidate their efforts to develop, extract and process rare earth metals and attract advanced technologies in this area.
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