Critical minerals bill opens room for Brazil to impose export conditions

The report on Brazil’s national policy for critical and strategic minerals opens the way for the government to establish conditions on the export of these inputs, in an effort to encourage greater value addition within Brazil and avoid limiting the country to the sale of lower-processed products.

Under the text, the government would be able to adopt parameters, technical requirements and value-addition commitments linked to the export of critical and strategic minerals.

In practice, the wording creates a legal basis for the government to require counterpart commitments from companies seeking to sell these minerals abroad, especially in projects with a low degree of mineral transformation carried out in Brazil.

The report also provides for preference criteria, additional scoring, administrative prioritization or strategic classification for projects that internalize relevant stages of the mineral production chain.

The logic is to favor ventures that go beyond extraction and basic processing, with greater participation in stages such as mineral transformation, refining, production of battery-grade inputs, materials for permanent magnets and other higher value-added products.

Another point included in the text is the obligation to provide information on volume, destination, final beneficiary, corporate ownership chain, degree of processing, mineral composition and economic use of critical and strategic minerals intended for export.

That would give the government a more detailed picture of who is exporting, where shipments are going, at what stage of processing and for what economic purpose.

The measure does not create an export ban or establish a direct tax on foreign sales, but it broadens the executive branch’s tools to monitor and impose conditions on the export of minerals considered strategic for the country.

The provision is part of the final report on the legal framework for critical minerals prepared by Congressman Arnaldo Jardim, which is moving through Brazil’s lower house under an urgent procedure.

Source: CNN Brasil

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