Indonesia seeks tech independence through rare earth cooperation

Jakarta (ANTARA) – Indonesia’s Minister of Higher Education, Science, and Technology Brian Yuliarto has stressed the need for national collaboration to strengthen the country’s independence in rare earth elements technology.He said such collaboration is a crucial step toward technological self-reliance, noting that a nation’s economic success depends not only on its natural resources but also on its ability to master and apply research-based technology.”We must have a strategy; the key to using rare earth elements lies in our ability to master technology and build industry,” he said in a statement in Jakarta on Monday.Yuliarto, who also chairs the Mineral Industry Agency (BIM), highlighted the importance of learning from countries such as Japan, South Korea, and China, which have advanced through strategic mineral processing and technology development.”Mastery of national technology is the only way to prevent Indonesia from repeating history when natural resources were exported cheaply but re-imported as high-value finished goods,” he said.Echoing his view, Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) Rector Tatacipta Dirgantara called for cross-disciplinary collaboration in developing research on rare earth elements and strategic minerals.He said that science and technology mastery should underpin the management of Indonesia’s natural resources.”Through synergy between faculties, research centers, and the industrial sector, ITB is ready to strengthen academic contributions from upstream to downstream,” Dirgantara said.Indonesia has 15 metallogenic belts, the result of magmatic mineralization processes, spanning about 15,000 kilometers, with only half explored.Deputy Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Yuliot Tanjung said earlier that Indonesia’s potential in critical minerals and rare earth metals remains largely untapped.”We have significant potential for critical minerals and rare earth metals. This has not been fully utilized, even though domestic industry and downstream technology development need it,” he said.