AFGANISTAN AND RARE EARTHS

Emilian Dobrescu () and Edith Mihaela Dobre ()
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Edith Mihaela Dobre: Sociology-Psihology Faculty, Spiru Haret University, Bucharest, Romania

Global Economic Observer, 2013, vol. 1, issue 1, 52-56

Abstract: On our planet, over a quarter of new technologies for the economic production of industrial goods, are using rare earths, which are also called critical minerals and industries that rely on these precious items being worth of an estimated nearly five trillion dollars, or 5 percent of world gross domestic product. In the near future, competition will increase for the control of rare earth minerals embedded in high-tech products. Rare minerals are in the twenty-first century what oil accounted for in the twentieth century and coal in the nineteenth century: the engine of a new industrial revolution. Future energy will be produced increasingly by more sophisticated technological equipment based not just on steel and concrete, but incorporating significant quantities of metals and rare earths. Widespread application of these technologies will result in an exponential increase in demand for such minerals, and what is worrying is that minerals of this type are almost nowhere to be found in Europe and in other industrialized countries in the world, such as U.S. and Japan, but only in some Asian countries, like China and Afghanistan.

Keywords: rare earths; minerals; reserves; assessment; industrial products; shortage; supply (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L61 L72 Q32 Q55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-05
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