Japan will support Malaysia's rare earth refining with ODA.

The Japanese government will begin providing Malaysia with technical support related to rare earth mining. The plan is to supply geological survey equipment through a government development assistance (ODA) project, and to advance joint cooperation on environmentally focused rare earth refining technologies. This initiative aims to help Malaysia, which has abundant rare earth reserves, build up its production base and diversify rare earth procurement channels.

This is the first time Japan and Malaysia have launched technical cooperation in the field of rare earth mining through ODA between the two countries. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) sent experts from February to Malaysia in areas such as resource geology and environmental chemistry to help kick off the project.

At present, technical personnel from Japan and Malaysia are coordinating and communicating regarding the project objectives, among other efforts. Japan also plans to invite about 10 technical personnel from Malaysia in fields such as mineral processing for training in Japan.

To continue reading, please click here to go to the Nikkei Chinese website

Nikkei Inc. and the Financial Times merged into the same media group in November 2015. The alliance formed by two newspapers—Japan and the United Kingdom—which were also founded in the 19th century—is moving forward with broad-ranging cooperation such as joint special features under the banner of “high-quality, the most powerful economic journalism.” This time, as part of that, the two newspapers’ Chinese websites have exchanged articles.