By: Real America News Updated 19 Apr 2022 , 13: 57 pm EDT
The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, assured that his government will develop technology to exploit lithium after the reform that orders the mineral to be exclusive to the State and prohibits the participation of foreigners.
“I was reading comments that why are we going to have lithium if we are going to lack the technology? . But there we are going to develop the technology or acquire it, but the lithium is ours “, said the president in his daily conference.
López Obrador celebrated the approval of the reform of the Mining Law that took place this Monday in the Chamber of Deputies and that will be voted on this Tuesday in the Senate.
The reform, proposed by the president, declares it to be of public utility the exploration, exploitation and use of lithium, in addition to preventing concessions and private contracts for the exploitation of the mineral, which will be the sole responsibility of the State through a new decentralized body.
“ I am very happy with the lithium thing. It is that they do not say anything (the opponents), but they know very well what means lithium, it is a strategic mineral”, he stated.
According to official data, Mexico is in the number place 10 of the 23 countries with reserves of this mineral, with the largest deposit in the world in Sonora, in the northwest of the country.
The president has questioned the interest of foreign companies and governments in the mineral.
“It has to do with a good of the nation that foreigners covet, I know they want it. I’m not sure, but there are those who maintain that the coup in Bolivia (against Evo Morales in 2019) had to do with lithium”, he asserted.
The legal initiative is presented after the failure this Sunday of the constitutional reform on energy that included a section for the Magna Carta to recognize the exclusive power of the State to exploit lithium.
The president ironically commented that the opposition deputies “didn’t do their job” because they thought that their intention to nationalize lithium had ended.
“Yesterday was a very good decision, let’s see if they don’t get the hang of it. Ears to those who did not do their complete work because they thought that by blocking the constitutional reform that was already solved. No”, he said.
With information from Efe.
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