METI Seeks 17% Higher Budget for Mineral & Resources for F2010

Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry seeks 15.597 billion yen of budget for mineral and natural resources division of natural resources and fuel department in Agency for Natural Resources and Energy for fiscal 2010 starting April 2010, which is 17.2% higher than fiscal 2009. METI tries to improve the stable supply of mineral and resources along with development of ocean resources.

The budget includes 11.837 billion yen for stable supply of mineral resources, 3.76 billion yen for ocean resources development for fiscal 2010, which is 17.8% and 17.2% higher respectively than fiscal 2009 budget. The exploration budget is 8.52 billion yen, which is 16.4% higher than fiscal 2009 level. The rare metal securing budget increases by 33.4% to 6.363 billion yen.

The budget includes new item of 50 million yen to support environmental action in mineral and resource industry. The budget also includes 230 million yen for recycling system for low carbon industry to recover rare metals from high performance illumination lamp and solar energy generation panel.