Malaysia Caught in Rare Earth Tug-of-War

Malaysia faces a geopolitical choice as it looks to develop its resources of rare earth elements. The Southeast Asian country wants to do the extraction, processing, and manufacturing of finished products, including permanent magnets and super magnets, to scale up in the value chain and offer valuable exports. Malaysia has identified the potential of REE and aims to tap into its 18.2 million tons of non-radioactive RE reserves by 2030. All these reserves are currently valued at $174 billion (747.2 billion Malaysian ringgit), the Malaysian Investment…