TORONTO (Reuters) – Western nations should make ambitious investments in critical minerals to close the gap with China, which remains aggressive in consolidating its dominance in this space, Jonathan Price, CEO of Canadian miner Teck Resources said on Thursday in Ottawa.

Critical minerals are a bunch of metals used in a wide range of applications such as electric vehicles, defence and power generation.

“But so far, the most ambitious investments to help close that critical minerals gap are not coming from western nations,” Price said. He noted that in Canada, the government has committed $4 billion over eight years to support critical mineral development, compared to $20 billion that China invested in mining and metals in 2023 to expand its critical minerals access abroad.

(Reporting by Divya Rajagopal in Toronto and Promit Mukherjee in Ottawa; Editing by Andrea Ricci)