Australia wants to stockpile minerals crucial for tech, but how much of a bargaining chip are they?

Live from the UK, this is the Marketplace Morning Report from the BBC World Service.

I'm Sarah Rogers in for Leanna Burn. Good morning. First to Australia and those plans to

stockpile minerals like lithium, nickel and cobalt, which are vital in everyday technology.

The country's Prime Minister made the announcement in a speech in Perth.

It will mean we can deal with trade and market disruptions from a position of strength

because Australia will be able to call on an internationally significant quantity of resources

in global demand.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

With what it all means is the BBC's Katie Silver joining us on Marketplace from Singapore.

Hi Katie.

Hi there.

So the Australian Prime Minister has said that this is all about putting the country in a

position of strength.

So how does

you do that? What's the plan? The plan is to basically buy up about just over one billion

Australian dollars or three quarters of billion US dollars of using taxpayers' money to basically

go into a national reserve of critical minerals and rare earths, that it's going to purchase them,

own them and then sell them to the domestic industry and so-called like-minded nations. Now, according to the Prime Minister

Anthony Albanese, he said that he's hopeful that the reserve would last for multiple generations.

And of course, these are critical minerals. They're essential to modern technologies,

things like batteries and computer chips. Yes, and smartphones too, of course. So at the moment, where do all these minerals end up?

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