Vietnam has boosted its mining of rare earth materials as companies around the world look to divest from Chinese materials.
The Southeast Asian country has the world's second-largest estimated deposits of rare earths, a group of 17 elements that are crucial for making a range of electronic products, from magnets, glass screens and speakers to trains, mobile phones and missile guidance systems.
At the moment, around 98 per cent of the rare earth materials used in the European Union are imported from China. From 2008 to 2018, China exported nearly 408,000 metric tons of rare earths, which amounted to 42.3 per cent of all rare earth exports over that period.
Vietnam's rare earth mine production jumped to 4,300 tonnes last year from 400 tonnes in 2021, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), a government agency.
However, its output is a tiny fraction of the amount top producers mined last year. China, the world's biggest producer...