North Korea rare-earth venture: game-changer for investors?
It鈥檚 billed as potentially the largest deposit of rare earth minerals in the world. Unfortunately, it鈥檚 in North Korea, the world鈥檚 most isolated regime. Exploration is at the Jongju deposit by a joint venture between the North Koreans and SRE Minerals, a private equity firm from the British Virgin Islands. 聽
In December, the joint venture 鈥� Pacific Century Rare Earths Minerals, Ltd. 鈥� pointing to a world-beating deposit. Some press accounts have posited that it for the Kim regime鈥檚 efforts to develop the country鈥檚 nonexistent economy. But it remains to be seen whether the North is just playing games with this effort or is really interested in pursuing an economic opportunity.
鈥淚t鈥檚 been no secret that they have a lot of rare earths,鈥� says our correspondent in Seoul. 鈥淭he fact that we鈥檝e known about it for so long and nothing has really come of it I think says something about North Korea 鈥� that they鈥檝e got a terrible economy and they鈥檝e got all this marketable resource, but they can鈥檛 manage to get it together to do anything with it and make any money from it.鈥�
A previous Chinese iron mining project highlights the difficulties at hand. A Chinese firm, Tianchi Industry and Trade, bought extraction rights for 50 years in 2005. The company, however, could not get the North Koreans to live up to their end of the deal in terms of to ship the ore. By late 2012, the company simply pulled out, losing the money they put into the investment.... For the rest of the story, continue reading at our new business publication聽
