BELGRADE (Serbia), September 22 (SeeNews) – The chambers of commerce of Serbia and Kosovo plan, acting together, to support projects for the construction of lithium battery storage power stations, they said in a joint statement on Tuesday.
The two chambers plan to establish a joint sustainable energy sector group that will provide support for the construction of lithium battery storage power stations and will be part of a joint team to facilitate investment projects under the U.S.-brokered agreement for the normalisation of economic relations, according to the statement.
The group will also support projects for lithium exploration, the statement reads.
British-Australian mining group Rio Tinto discovered in 2004 a lithium borate deposit in the valley of the Jadar river in Serbia, which is estimated to contain 10% of the world's deposits of the metal, or 135.7 million tonnes with a weighted average concentration of 1.86% of lithium oxide. Rio Tinto is expected to invest about $1.5 billion (1.3 billion euro) in the project and to start the production of jadarite, a unique mineral containing both lithium and boron, at the end of 2024 or the beginning of 2025.
Earlier on Tuesday, the president of Serbia's Chamber of Commerce, Marko Cadez, said the two chambers of commerce plan to establish a joint team to provide assistance to governments, the business community, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM), U.S. and European Union institutions, and all participants in the Serbia-Kosovo economic normalisation process.
"What is new is our joint decision to establish a team that will support the implementation of what [...] Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo prime minister Avdullah Hoti agreed in Washington," Cadez told a news conference in Belgrade on the occasion of the arrival of a U.S. delegation led by the U.S. special envoy for Kosovo-Serbia Dialogue, Richard Grenell, to advance economic cooperation and development.
DFC will lay the groundwork for opening an office in Belgrade to facilitate implementation of projects that will support economic growth in the region. DFC and EXIM recently signed Letters of Interest (LOIs) with Serbia and Kosovo to help finance the important projects identified U.S.-brokered agreement on the normalisation of economic relations between Kosovo and Serbia, signed by Vucic and Hoti on September 4 in Washington.