Internationalising India’s critical minerals sector

This paper is authored by Anindita Sinh, research associate and Constantino Xavier, senior fellow, CSEP, New Delhi.

As India advances its ambitious climate and development goals, access to critical minerals has become a strategic imperative. Minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and rare earth elements underpin the country’s plans for green transition, advanced manufacturing, and national security. Yet India faces acute vulnerabilities: Limited domestic reserves, high import dependence (particularly on China, which supplies over half of India’s imports), and an underdeveloped processing and refining sector. These constraints expose the country to geopolitical risks, market volatility, and technological dependence at a moment when global competition for minerals is intensifying.

FILE - Critical minerals (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File) (AP)

To address these challenges, India launched the National Critical Minerals Mission (NCMM) in 2025, a seven-year framework backed by significant State resources. This study focuses on the NCMM’s international dimension, examining how India can secure resilient access by: a) leveraging external partnerships and b) enhancing policymaking structures to integrate domestic and external levels of operation. It asks four guiding questions:

• What is the utility of international partnerships on critical minerals?
• Which engagement models—bilateral, multilateral, or minilateral—are most effective?
• What role should the Indian government play in balancing State-led and market-led approaches while engaging abroad?
• What institutional design is most suitable for coordinating domestic and international interests?

This paper provides one of the first comprehensive mapping of India’s international partnerships on critical minerals and systematically analyses its domestic policymaking architecture. It identifies clear trends and patterns in both spheres and highlights the trade-offs India faces between external procurement and domestic capacity, upstream extraction and downstream processing, and statist versus market-led approaches.

The study argues that India cannot achieve critical minerals “self-reliance” through domestic measures alone. Instead, a strategic, State-led but partnership-oriented model—combining diplomacy, industrial policy, private sector, and institutional reform—is essential. By deepening Global South ties, leveraging Global North technology, and streamlining its domestic ecosystem, India can build resilient supply chains to support its economic ambitions and climate commitments.

Mapping India’s bilateral, multilateral, and minilateral initiatives, the study finds that India’s international engagements vary widely in scope and maturity, ranging from early-stage memoranda of understanding to operational joint ventures.

Key trends and patterns in international partnerships:

• Recent acceleration but uneven maturity: Most partnerships are nascent or developing. Only a few—most notably with Australia and Japan—are operational, delivering concrete access to upstream resources and technology.
• Layered engagement: Bilateral deals (e.g., with Australia, Argentina, Chile, and Mongolia) provide targeted resource access; minilateral platforms like the Quad and Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) enable policy coordination; while multilateral forums (G20, International Energy Agency [IEA], and UN) remain largely principle-setting.
• North–South imbalance: Partnerships with the Global North emphasise technology, standards, and resilience, while resource-rich Global South engagements in Africa and Latin America remain largely untapped or exploratory.
• No engagement with China: Despite high import dependence, India has avoided cooperation with Beijing, seeking instead to hedge risks through diversification.
• Strategic breadth vs depth: Many Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) exist, but few translate into projects that strengthen domestic value chains.

Policy recommendations on international engagement:

• Prioritise Global South partnerships to secure upstream access and co-develop value chains, particularly in Africa and Latin America.
• Advance triangular cooperation by linking Global North partners’ technology and finance with Global South resources.
• Play a proactive role in multilateral governance to shape emerging norms on sustainability, equity, and climate justice.
• Focus partnerships beyond extraction, emphasising refining, recycling, and technology transfer to build long-term capacity.
• Consider limited engagement with China, coupling inward investments with technology transfer and Research and Development (R&D) requirements.

India’s policymaking architecture for critical minerals is still evolving. The NCMM provides a broad framework, but coordination remains fragmented across ministries, Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs), industry, and new entrants such as NITI Aayog.

Key trends and patterns in the domestic ecosystem:

• Fragmented institutional setup: Multiple ministries and agencies pursue parallel initiatives, leading to overlaps and weak coordination.
• Tension between statist and market approaches: India risks over-centralisation through State-led ventures but leaving the sector entirely to market forces could undermine geoeconomic and security interests.
• Underdeveloped processing and recycling capacity: Even when resources are secured, India lacks sufficient midstream and downstream infrastructure.
• Emergence of multiple stakeholders: From defence and atomic energy to industry players, research bodies, and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), a wider set of actors is now shaping mineral policy, though with limited integration.
• Lessons from hydrocarbons: India’s past pursuit of energy security shows the dangers of both over-reliance on “self-reliance” rhetoric and risky overseas extraction strategies driven by PSUs.

Policy recommendations on the domestic ecosystem:

• Build foreign policy and negotiation capacity within decision-making institutions through expert integration and training.
• Engage start-ups, SMEs, and micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) within the mining ecosystem in international projects via mapping, financing support, and targeted incentives.
• Strengthen processing and recycling infrastructure to capture more value domestically and reduce external dependence.
• Avoid repeating path dependencies from the hydrocarbons sector by balancing exploration, acquisition, and long-term technology development.

This paper can be accessed here.

This paper is authored by Anindita Sinh, research associate and Constantino Xavier, senior fellow, CSEP, New Delhi.