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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Lisa O'Carroll

EU may as well be ‘province of China’ due to reliance on imports, says industrialist

Stefan Scherer in blue hard hat and hi-viz
‘Europe has to become independent of China, otherwise it’s just blah blah blah,’ says Stefan Scherer. Photograph: Kristin Bethge/The Guardian

The EU may as well “apply to be a province of China” such is its inability to wean itself off that country’s supply of critical raw materials used in everything from electric vehicles to smartphones and wind turbines, a leading German industrialist has said.

As chief executive of AMG Lithium, the EU’s first factory to make the lithium hydroxide used in many car batteries, Stefan Scherer sits at the centre of what has been dubbed a new gold rush.

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