Not long ago, critical raw materials (CRMs) - metals and minerals essential for technology, green energy, and defense - were a concern reserved for specialists and niche industries. Today, they sit squarely at the heart of key geopolitical priorities. Recent high-level agreements, such as the U.S.-Ukraine minerals deal, have further intensified debates around the strategic importance of CRMs.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, critical minerals are increasingly a subject of geopolitical competition, influencing global power dynamics as states seek to secure supply chains of these vital goods, The Caspian Post reports citing The Diplomat.
The United States and European Union are focused on reducing their dependence on China by investing in new supply chains. Meanwhile, China and Russia use their control over existing supplies to strengthen their global influence. These competing approaches make international cooperation more difficult, and the search for critical minerals has become a race for power.
This is where Central Asia enters the picture. The region is rich in untapped and diverse mineral potential, geographically strategic, and now politically more engaged with global stakeholders. For decades, Central Asia remained under the radar in global mineral supply chains, overshadowed by traditional mining powerhouses. But as demand for critical raw materials surges, the landlocked Central Asian region has become a frontier of strategic interest.
Central Asian governments seem committed to unlocking this potential by attracting private investment and modernizing the mining sector. The Kazakh government views the development of CRMs, which President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev described as having “essentially become new oil”, as a priority task. Likewise, Uzbekistan has identified the development of its rare-earth mining sector as a key priority, with President Shavkat Mirziyoyev emphasizing the country’s vast reserves as a strategic asset. Kyrgyzstan is preparing to start issuing licenses for the extraction of CRMs, a move that would have seemed unlikely just five years ago. Similarly, Tajikistan holds the top position among Central Asian countries for lead and zinc reserves and ranks second for antimony reserves and is enhancing its collaboration with neighboring countries to exploit its vast deposits.
The countries of Central Asia have initiated strategic partnerships with several Western countries to advance the extraction of critical raw materials. However, with strategic value comes strategic vulnerability.
As access to and control of CRMs become subjects of global competition, Central Asia finds itself in a tricky position. The region is not only rich in resources, but also strategically sandwiched between China and Russia, two powers that have long played prominent roles in its economic infrastructure and political orientation. The U.S. is also interested in Central Asia’s critical minerals. President Joe Biden underscored the priority by launching the inaugural C5+1 Critical Minerals Dialogue with all five Central Asian states in February 2024, and the second Donald Trump administration has continued efforts to broaden cooperation in this domain. Most recently, Reuters reported that U.S. businessman James Cameron is eyeing a takeover of Eurasian Resources Group (ERG), one of Kazakhstan’s largest mining firms. ERG has denied reports regarding negotiations on the sale of the company. The EU is also deepening its engagement with Central Asia with an eye to critical raw materials, fostering new partnerships to secure access to CRMs and reduce reliance on traditional suppliers like Russia and China.
As global interest in Central Asia’s CRMs grows, however, it is unclear whether this will lead to sustainable economic benefits for the region, or whether it will create new forms of dependency, accelerate environmental degradation, and entangle the region in growing geopolitical competition.
The EU’s CRM Strategy in Central Asia
In 2020, recognizing its various dependencies regarding CRMs, such as its reliance on China for 100 percent of its heavy rare earth elements, Turkiye for 99 percent of its boron, and South Africa for 71 percent of its platinum, the EU launched its Action Plan on CRMs to diversify sourcing and cap reliance on any single country at 65 percent. The EU also updated its 2019 Central Asia Strategy, further emphasizing renewable energy, transport infrastructure, and technology transfer as important areas of priority.
To operationalize its external infrastructure and connectivity ambitions, the EU launched its flagship Global Gateway Strategy in 2021. Under the Global Gateway initiative, the EU is investing 300 million euro in infrastructure, aiming to improve digital and geographical connectivity and the green economy. CRMs are a central component of the Global Gateway, especially in service of the EU’s Green Deal Industrial Plan and the Net-Zero Industry Act. Both policies highlight the urgency of securing CRMs sourced from geopolitically stable and sustainable partners. Investment in the Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor, which offers a strategic alternative to routes dominated by Russia and China while simultaneously enhancing the EU’s access to essential raw materials and reinforcing the resilience of global supply networks, also fits into this overall effort.
The Global Gateway also aims to promote “value chain democracy,” fostering ethical, transparent, and democratic standards in international partnerships. Through this lens, Central Asia is not only a resource provider but a development partner, with investments structured to support industrialization, local processing, and regulatory alignment.
By 2022, these converging strategic priorities, coupled with geopolitical tensions, intensified high-level engagement with Central Asia, such as in October 2022 in Astana, Kazakhstan, and in June 2023 in Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan. A landmark was the First Regional EU-Central Asia Leaders’ Meeting in Astana in October 2022, which signaled CRMs as a key area of cooperation.
This increasing engagement has yielded several strategic partnerships. In November 2022, the EU and Kazakhstan signed a Memorandum of Understanding on critical raw materials; a similar MoU was signed with Uzbekistan in April 2024, in Brussels. These strategic MoUs and meetings further solidified the EU’s commitments, reinforced by investments from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
In 2024, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan emerged as the top recipients of EBRD investment in the region, receiving 938 million euro and 913 million euro, respectively.
European Commissioner Jozef Síkela further deepened EU-Central Asia ties under the Global Gateway strategy by signing multiple agreements during his March 2025 regional tour. The deals spanned critical sectors including transport, energy, digital connectivity, and CRMs, with a strong focus on sustainable economic growth, job creation, and infrastructure development.
Last month’s EU-Central Asia Summit also spotlighted CRMs, with a strong focus on securing key minerals essential to both Europe’s expanding defense sector and its green transition. The summit marked the first-ever meeting of all EU and Central Asian leaders, an important milestone that launched a 12 billion euro investment package, including 2.5 billion euro dedicated to critical raw materials. They endorsed an EU-Central Asia “Declaration of Intent” on CRMs and the 2025-2026 roadmap under the EU-Kazakhstan MoU.
The Emerging Investment Landscape
As part of all of these efforts, European business interests in Central Asia are growing. Germany’s HMS Bergbau AG said in 2023 that it would be investing $8 million in lithium exploration in Kazakhstan, which a potential increase to $500 million if reserves are confirmed. In August 2024, the EBRD bought a 17.36 percent stake in Sarytogan Graphite, which is developing a graphite site in Kazakhstan’s Karaganda Region. In March 2025, France’s Orano signed an agreement with Uzbekistan’s Navoiyuran “laying the foundations” for the development of a uranium mining project. German banks KfW IPEX and AKA have agreed to provide 146 million euro in financial support for the construction of a new copper smelting complex at Uzbekistan’s Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Combine, significantly enhancing local processing capabilities and job creation.
In Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, the EU strategy has also begun to make modest inroads. In Tajikistan, the EU is supporting infrastructure upgrades to the electrical grid and the completion of the
Rogun hydropower plant, which provides vital energy resources necessary for potential future mining and processing operations. Kyrgyzstan, meanwhile, benefits from EU-backed initiatives aiming at improving
logistics infrastructure, enhancing access to remote mineral deposits.
While European companies are beginning to enter Central Asia’s CRMs sector, most initiatives are still in the early stages, making long-term outcomes uncertain. At a recent summit, the EU emphasized its distinct approach: promoting sustainable development and supporting the growth of local industry. Rather than focusing solely on resource access, the EU aims to foster value-added production and regional capacity. However, agreements remain exploratory, with tangible results, such as refined materials, job creation, or regulatory progress, yet to emerge. Modern geological exploration is a pressing need, as much of the region still relies on outdated Soviet-era data.
One of the most persistent structural barriers remains the lack of local processing capacity. Historically, Central Asian countries have exported raw ores, since they lack sufficient capacity to refine or process them locally, thus losing significant economic value. However, regional cooperation could provide a promising path forward. For example, Kyrgyzstan’s significant titanium reserves at Kyzyl-Ompol
could be linked to Kazakhstan’s existing titanium and magnesium processing plant in Ust-Kamenogorsk, allowing the region to develop shared value chains that enhance economic integration and efficiency. Such cross-border collaboration would not only address processing gaps but also strengthen regional cohesion in managing shared resources.
Risks and Criticisms
Criticism of critical raw materials development in Central Asia often centers on concerns that great power competition, particularly between the U.S., China, and the EU, is turning the region into a geopolitical battleground. This dynamic
risks repeating neo-colonial patterns, where elites and foreign actors benefit while local communities bear environmental and social costs. To that end, local communities must be fully involved in decision-making processes and protected from potential displacement or exploitation. Without transparent governance and equitable distribution mechanisms, revenues from extraction risk reinforcing existing inequalities and bypassing the communities most affected by mining operations. The EU has largely made its agreements public, and continued disclosure of such arrangements will likely remain necessary to uphold a level of accountability and public awareness. If Central Asia’s investments continue to prioritize extraction, the region risks falling into a resource trap, where dependence on critical raw materials reinforces economic vulnerability, environmental degradation, and social inequality. Experts warn that without expanding development along the entire mineral value chain, CRMs may
hinder rather than promote sustainable growth.
Processing, rather than mining, remains the main challenge in the critical minerals supply chain. Although Kazakhstan can refine metals such as copper, zinc, and lead, the region still lacks the facilities to handle energy minerals like lithium, uranium, nickel, and cobalt, most of which are sent to China or Russia for advanced processing.
Since China dominates the CRMs industry, many Western policymakers have turned their attention to Central Asia as a potential alternative in efforts to diversify supply chains and reduce strategic dependency. This narrative overlooks the extent to which the region is already embedded in Chinese and Russian spheres of influence. Since the Soviet Union’s collapse, legacy infrastructure has tied Central Asia to Russia, while China’s Belt and Road Initiative has reoriented trade eastward.
Central Asian states operate on the basis of “multivector” foreign policies: balancing ties with China, Russia, the EU, the U.S., and others in an effort to diversify their partnerships and protect their sovereignty. That is why it is a significant misconception to view Central Asian countries merely as an alternative to China. The region is not a geopolitical blank slate awaiting Western alignment, but a dynamic and strategically autonomous space in which the separate nations seek to balance multiple external relationships in order to advance their national interests. Any meaningful engagement must recognize and respect this complexity, rather than treating Central Asia as a passive actor in great power competition.
Conclusion
As global interest in Central Asia’s critical raw materials accelerates, significant opportunities are emerging, accompanied by formidable challenges. Realizing the region’s potential requires careful management, balanced international cooperation, and substantial local investment in value-added industries. The EU’s cooperative and inclusive approach offers a promising alternative to traditional extractive models, but structural, geopolitical, and economic barriers remain substantial. The most effective strategy for the EU lies in positioning itself as a reliable, complementary partner focused on sustainable and mutually beneficial development, which would complement Central Asian nations’ multi-vectoral foreign policies.
Ultimately, Central Asia’s success in harnessing CRMs sustainably will depend on its ability to balance external interests with internal capacities. Most importantly, governments must prioritize the needs of their people and inclusive development, rather than fall into the trap of serving narrow elite interests that risk undermining long-term national resilience and equity. To unlock their full potential, structural gaps must be addressed, with a shift toward value-added processing, local capacity building, and long-term economic diversification.
