Amid mounting concern over Chinese dominance over green energy supply chains, the World Bank and Japan have launched a new partnership to help developing countries boost their green manufacturing capabilities.
The partnership will help developing countries and emerging markets ramp up manufacturing of clean energy products and boost their participation in the minerals industry.
The “Resilient and Inclusive Supply-chain Enhancement” or “RISE” partnership also counts Italy, South Korea, Canada and the UK as members.
The partners are together putting more than $40m into the initiative, with $25m of that coming from Japan.
The partnership was announced during a World Bank-International Monetary Fund summit in Marrakech.
Japan’s Minister of Finance, Suzuki Shunichi, said the partnership will support the sustainable development of low and middle income countries and “supply chain diversification of clean energy products.”
World Bank President Ajay Banga said the partnership will hand countries “new economic opportunities in clean energy and minerals industries; leading to jobs that help them build better lives for themselves and their families.”
The new partnership comes amid mounting concern in the West over China’s stranglehold on renewable energy supply chains, with concepts such as friend-shoring, near-shoring and diversification of supply all gaining ground.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen recently lashed out at China for causing “bottlenecks” in global supply chains through “deliberate policies,” such as expert restrictions on gallium and germanium, which are essential for goods like semiconductors and solar panels.
Those comments came as she pledged new EU support for its struggling wind power industry, which is under threat from cheap and powerful Chinese imports that the EU complains are being sold on “unfair” terms.
EU leaders have also been warned not to repeat the mistakes of their previous reliance on Russian gas by becoming dependent on Chinese lithium-ion batteries needed for the energy transition.
