ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has dispatched its first ever shipment of rare earth and critical minerals to the United States (US), a Chicago-based US public relations (PR) firm said this week, following a landmark $500 million deal between the two countries.
The development comes weeks after American firm US Strategic Metals (USSM) and Pakistan’s Frontier Works Organization (FWO) signed the agreement for collaboration across a range of critical minerals essential for the defense, aerospace and technology industries.
The agreement was signed between American firm US Strategic Metals (USSM) and Pakistan’s Frontier Works Organization (FWO) at the Prime Minister’s House in Islamabad, according to the US embassy in Islamabad.
It aimed to create a framework for joint development of the entire mineral value chain, including exploration, beneficiation, concentrate production and eventual establishment of refineries in Pakistan.
“In a historic milestone for bilateral cooperation, Pakistan has successfully delivered its first batch of enriched rare earth elements and critical minerals to US Strategic Metals (USSM) in the United States,” PR Newswire, an American public relations firm headquartered in Chicago, said this week.
“This achievement inaugurates a $500 million partnership framework, signed earlier this month, and signals the beginning of a new chapter in the Pakistan–US strategic partnership.”
In this first shipment, Pakistan has indigenously sourced and prepared antimony, copper concentrate, rare earth elements with neodymium and praseodymium, strategic and economic significance, according to the PR firm.
With this first delivery and a multi-phase investment framework underway, Pakistan is now positioned as a rising force in the global critical mineral economy.
“We see this as the first step in our exciting journey together with the Frontier Works Organization of Pakistan to provide critical minerals to the United States and bolster economic trade and friendship between our two countries,” USSM CEO Stacy W. Hastie was quoted as saying.
