Overview
- Signed in New Delhi during a Lula–Modi meeting, the nonbinding memorandum creates a cooperation framework rather than detailed project commitments.
- The scope includes joint exploration, mining, processing and investment across rare earths and other critical minerals such as lithium and niobium.
- Leaders framed the move as supply‑chain diversification, with Brazil seeking more local value‑addition and India working to curb dependence on China’s dominance.
- Brazil holds the world’s second‑largest reserves of these minerals, and only about 30% have been explored, according to Indian foreign ministry official P. Kumaran.
- Companion agreements covered digital policy, access to medicines and a Mazagon Dock pact for Scorpene submarine maintenance, as both sides target bilateral trade above $20 billion in the coming years.