METI to Secure 85% Higher Budget for Non Ferrous Metals

Ministry of Economy, Trade & Industry tries to increase the budget for nonferrous metal industry. The budget plan for Non Ferrous Metals Division of Manufacturing Industries Bureau of METI increased by 54.8% to 2.53 billion yen for fiscal 2009 starting April from fiscal 2007 when Japanese Cabinet agreed the budget plan on Wednesday. The budget for fiscal 2009 increased by 85.3% to 3.03 billion yen including first supplementary budget for fiscal 2008. METI aims to advance the development of alternate material to rare metals.

The budget for project to develop the alternate materials to rare metals doubled to 2.05 billion yen for fiscal 2009 including the extra budget in fiscal 2008 from 1 billion yen in fiscal 2008. METI newly implements the development of the alternate materials to platinum, cerium and terbium to reduce the rare metals import.

The budget for high-temperature superconducting cable, which is expected to improve efficiency of electricity distribution significantly, increased to over four times at 680 million yen for fiscal 2009 including fiscal 2008 additional budget from 160 million yen in fiscal 2008 to implement the verification test.

For developing of high purity metals for electric generation plant, the budget decreased by 23.0% to 300 million yen for fiscal 2009 from a year earlier. The development project enters into demonstration phase.