00:00Zimbabwe shipped its first consignment of lithium sulfate on Monday, raising Harare's hopes
00:06of becoming a hub for battery minerals processing.
00:09The news comes just months after the country banned the export of raw lithium in an effort
00:15to force local processing, boost export earnings and create skilled industrial jobs.
00:22Chinese investors have spent millions of dollars to build plants to process lithium in a form
00:28that Zimbabwe would allow to exit.
00:30Monday's shipment came from the Arcadia mine, run by Chinese company Zhejiang Huayu Cobalt.
00:37Arcadia can produce up to 50,000 metric tons of lithium sulfate a year.
00:42This is the first time the material has ever been produced on the African continent.
00:48It's used in rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage systems.
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