Overview
- The federal government announced the new raw‑materials foreign policy on Wednesday, setting immediate priorities and steps to strengthen supply security for German industry.
- Berlin will prioritise and deepen bilateral partnerships with Australia, Brazil, Chile, Canada and South Africa to diversify sources and reduce dependence on single suppliers.
- Officials plan to create central overseas 'Anlaufstellen für Rohstofffragen' that will coordinate embassies, trade chambers, KfW, GTAI, BGR and GIZ and act as single points of contact for partners and companies.
- The strategy commits to closer alignment with company needs and to explore joint long‑term offtake contracts and pooled financing, but concrete offtake deals and financing mechanisms remain in development.
- The shift responds to recent geopolitical supply shocks and to persistent processing dependencies linked to China, and pairs foreign partnerships with measures to boost local value chains, domestic recycling and use of home resources.