KRASNOGORSK, Russia. Feb 25 (Interfax-AVN) - Russia's government plans to create reserves of rare earth metals, a deputy prime minister said on Saturday.
"I chaired a conference on this matter recently, and we reached agreement with the Ministry of Economic Development and Rosrezerv [the Federal Agency for State Reserves] that we would be well-advised to create emergency reserves of all the essential things that we may need in 10 to 15 years' time. Work is in progress on programs to that effect," Dmitry Rogozin said at a meeting at the Technology Museum with members of various political parties.
He said that several years ago, when he was Russia's envoy to NATO and posted at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels, a scandal broke out when Western officials found out that China had come to control the majority of rare earth metal mining projects.
"You can't imagine this - there was such an outburst of hysterics there they nearly drank up all the vodka in the bar," Rogozin said.
"The extraction of rare earth metals and building reserves of them is a priority for Russia as well because, if we are to develop new technologies, it's extremely important for us to have unrestricted access to rare earth metals," he said.