As the Senate debates the National Critical Minerals Policy, ABDI convenes government and industry to discuss how Brazil can move beyond exporting commodities. The focus is on adding value and driving technological and industrial development with these strategic resources.
The Brazilian Agency for Industrial Development (ABDI) hosted a crucial meeting in Brasília, bringing together government, mineral sector, and industry representatives to shape the future of critical minerals in Brazil. This strategic event coincided with the start of the Senate’s review of Bill No. 2,780/2024. This bill aims to establish the National Critical and Strategic Minerals Policy, proposing essential measures to stimulate the research, extraction, processing, and transformation of these vital resources in the country.
At the second edition of “Café com a Indústria” (Coffee with Industry), an ABDI initiative focused on fostering dialogue about topics relevant to the competitiveness of national industry, the core of the debate was how Brazil can convert its vast mineral advantage into high-level productive, technological, and competitive capacity. The discussion underscores the urgency of an approach that goes beyond mere extraction, aiming for added value and sustainable development.
ABDI’s Role in Industrial Connection
During the event’s opening, ABDI President, Olavo Noleto, highlighted the Agency’s crucial role in connecting industrial policy with the reality of businesses. He emphasized the need to transform strategic guidelines into concrete conditions that allow industry to invest, innovate, and compete in the global scenario.
Olavo Noleto, president of ABDI, stated:
“There’s a gap between industrial policy, coordinated by the Ministry of Development, Industry, Trade, and Services (MDIC), and its concrete implementation by industry. We need to ensure that companies can secure financing, access innovation and equipment, and gain competitiveness to contend in markets. That’s where ABDI comes in, as a fundamental instrument to build the pillars that allow industry to cross this bridge.”
Noleto reinforced that Brazil cannot miss the historic opportunity to transform its mineral resources into industrial and technological wealth. He advocates that, in addition to increasing the production of critical minerals, it is imperative to create conditions for a growing share of this value to remain in the country, generating investments, changing the technological profile of our industry, creating new businesses, and generating income and skilled jobs.
The Importance of Value-Addition: International Lessons
International experience shows that possessing natural resources is merely the starting point. The Secretary of Industrial Development, Innovation, Trade, and Services at MDIC, Uallace Moreira, cited South Korea as an inspiring example of a country that built a competitive steel industry without Brazil’s same mineral abundance.
Uallace Moreira, MDIC, stated:
“The government has made it clear that it does not want what happened with iron ore, for example, where we end up exporting it without adding value, to happen with critical and strategic minerals.”
This perspective illustrates Brazil’s major challenge. Moreira argued that competitive advantage does not arise spontaneously but is actively built through well-directed public policies. The same logic, according to the secretary, should guide Brazil’s policy for critical and strategic minerals, ensuring that these natural resources serve as a basis for technological development. Minerals are crucial for all Industry 4.0 technologies, and Brazil should not limit itself to being merely a commodity exporter.
From Mining to Industry: Transforming Potential into Business
The first panel of “Café com a Indústria,” titled “Critical Minerals: Brazil’s Potential for Industrial and Technological Development,” focused on how Brazil’s mineral potential can be converted into business, technology, and industrial production. One of the great opportunities lies in bringing together different stages of the value chain and increasing the complexity of products developed in the country.
Jorge Boeira, Productivity and Innovation Analyst at ABDI and the panel’s moderator, summarized the challenge as a shift in the production chain’s level.
Jorge Boeira, Productivity and Innovation Analyst at ABDI, stated:
“There is room for us to evaluate the possibilities of integrating value chains and producing more sophisticated and technological materials in Brazil.”
In practice, this means advancing to stages such as chemical refining, the production of advanced materials, industrial components, and products with higher technological content, reducing dependence on raw material exports. The global concentration of strategic technology and input production also brought the geopolitical dimension to the center of the debate, where diversifying these chains can position Brazil internationally not only by offering mineral resources but also through its knowledge and technology. In this scenario, ABDI seeks to produce industrial intelligence to support governmental decision-making.
The convergence of research, mining, and industry was another point highlighted on the panel. For Pablo Cesário, interim CEO of the Brazilian Mining Institute (IBRAM), the challenge is to expand the scale and articulation of research projects.
Pablo Cesário, IBRAM, stated:
“We are at an inflection point. The sector has changed, the world has changed, and the future we want to build involves mining. We have top-tier researchers in the country, but fragmented projects are not enough. The challenge is to structure large research projects involving companies and research centers in Brazil and abroad, so that we fully master the technological process.”
ABDI’s agenda is already materializing in concrete projects. In partnership with the Mineral Technology Center (CETEM), the Agency is structuring initiatives focused on lithium and rare earths, including a conceptual proposal for the production of lithium carbonate and hydroxide in the Jequitinhonha Valley, and studies for the reconversion of chemical plants for the production of precursors and active materials for battery cells — stages of greater technological complexity and added value.
The Agency’s work in this area dates back to 2010 when it supported a conceptual study for a rare earth magnet factory-laboratory and advanced with the ETR-BR program, electric mobility actions, and partnerships with research institutions and government bodies. ABDI’s activities also cover regulatory bottlenecks in the sector. Through the Destrava Brasil (Unlock Brazil) program, the Agency collaborates with the National Mining Agency (ANM) on administrative and normative modernization projects, using artificial intelligence to analyze thousands of processes.
Technology, Industrial Transformation, and Market Access
The second panel expanded the discussion to subsequent stages of the chain, focusing on technology, industrial transformation, and market access. Talita Daher, Manager of New Economy and Green Industry at ABDI, summarized the challenge: “how to transform Brazil’s endowment of critical minerals into technological capacity, industrial production, and higher value-added exports?”
The panel “From Mining to Industry: Technology, Value-Addition, and New Production Chains” explored the articulation between the domestic market, technological cooperation, and international integration. For Margarete Maria Gandini, Director of Development for High-Medium Technological Complexity Industry at MDIC, the central discussion is the position Brazil intends to occupy in global supply chains.
Margarete Maria Gandini, MDIC, stated:
“True sovereignty is not simply in possessing resources, but in our ability to master and transform them.”
The discussion gains practical relevance when observing the applications of these resources. Rare earths, for example, possess magnetic, optical, and electrical properties indispensable in high-performance magnets, batteries, catalysts, and electronic equipment. Critical minerals are also essential components in wind turbines, energy storage systems, motors, and high-tech equipment.
In closing, Neide Freitas, Director of Sustainable Industrialization and Technological Transformation at ABDI, reinforced the Agency’s role in connecting the various actors on the industrial agenda. Randal Farah, Director of Industry Intelligence and Economics, highlighted the importance of institutional arrangements that bring together the market, academia, training sector, and public authorities for cohesive development.
ABDI’s initiative and the Senate’s debate on the National Critical and Strategic Minerals Policy mark an inflection point for Brazil. The discussion goes beyond mere extraction, focusing on value-addition, technological development, and industrial autonomy. By building robust public policies and fostering innovation and competitiveness in its production chains, the country has the opportunity to transform its mineral resources into a lasting source of wealth and progress, consolidating its position as a key player in the global high-tech and sustainability industry.
