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1) The US and Japan have agreed to boost cooperation on the critical supply chain as the US looks to counter the stranglehold China has over the market. Under the agreement, the materials that have been collected or processed in Japan will be eligible for EV tax breaks under the US Inflation Reduction Act, according to Yasutoshi Nishimura, the Japanese trade minister. “Securing critical minerals, which are necessary for electric vehicles, is an important issue to tackle as demand for these cars are expected to exponentially increase,” Nishimura told reporters. This deal is similar to the deal that the White House has been negotiation with the European Union, which could see as much as $369 billion in credits available in the next decade. Janet Yellen said that "one of the goals of the IRA is to broadly strengthen supply chains for these critical minerals and their processing."
2) Three new gold mines are projected to open in British Columbia, 6 years since the last one - Brucejack - went into production. The 2 gold mines, Premier and Cariboo Gold, are brownfield projects with historical mining, while the Blackwater mine from the greenfield project will provide a significant number of jobs and economic activity in an area that recently saw sawmills and pulp mills closures, representing an initial capital investment of just over $1 billion in the next couple of years.