Tuesday, July 17, 2012 -
Polish copper producer KGHM is looking to Kazakhstan to explore its copper deposits, the company’s chief executive officer said on Tuesday.
KGHM CEO Herbert Wirth said a recent deal with Germany made Kazakhtan a more attractive place for investment, though it will not be making any foreign acquisitions until 2014.
“There are a lot of interesting markets to explore and this is how we view Kazakhstan, for example,” Wirth told the Reuters news agency.
“The agreement signed recently by the German chancellor [Angela Merkel] and Kazakhstan’s president [Nursultan Nazarbayev] concerning the development of mining on that market is a signal that investments in Kazakhstan can be stable.”
Kazakh and German leaders signed a series of deals in February that would see Germany have greater access to Kazakhstan’s rare earth metals in exchange for technical expertise.
Global economies are turning towards Central Asia for rare earth metals after China, the source for 97 percent of the world’s rare earth supply, imposed a severe quota on the export of the sought-after minerals.
They are used in the production of smartphones and other high-level electronics.