Session 5
09:00
– 10:30 June
Kavaklıdere Ballroom
The Middle Corridor as a Global Strategic Supply Line: Türkiye, UK and Europe Close Ranks on Critical Minerals
UK, EU and Türkiye share a common strategic imperative: secure reliable, diversified supply chains for the critical minerals that underpin the energy transition, defence systems and advanced manufacturing. The Middle Corridor — stretching from Central Asian mineral wealth through the Caucasus to Türkiye and onward to global markets — offers one of the most compelling yet underexploited answers. Türkiye is the pivotal variable. Building its own midstream processing capacity in boron, REE and battery precursors while serving as the indispensable gateway for Central Asian minerals flowing west, Türkiye is not a transit corridor — it is a potential industrial anchor for the entire allied supply chain. This session asks what it will actually take to convert diplomatic alignment into commercial reality, and who needs to do what to make the Middle Corridor a functioning global strategic supply line.
- Türkiye as industrial anchor: How Türkiye’s midstream processing ambitions — boron chemicals, REE magnets, battery precursors — position it as an active value-adding partner in the Western supply chain, not just a corridor for transit.
- The US commercial offer: What the C5+1 Critical Minerals Dialogue, US trade facilitation tools and American private sector interest mean in practice for Tethyan Belt projects — and how companies can access them.
- The EU regulatory framework as a forcing function: How CBAM, Digital Product Passports and the Critical Raw Materials Act create both compliance pressure and competitive advantage for producers who meet the standard early.
- The UK dimension: Export finance, FCDO mineral partnerships, and British private sector engagement with the Middle Corridor.
- Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan — what Western partnerships actually require: High-value metallurgical clusters and integrated value chains need more than diplomatic frameworks; they need processing investment, technology transfer and bankable offtake terms.
- The financing gap: Where Western and allied capital is flowing, where it is not, and what it would take to match Chinese project finance on speed and flexibility.
09:15 - UKEF presentation
09:30 - Unlocking Uzbekistan’s Critical Raw Materials
09:45 - Unlocking the Tethyan Belt: The Strategic Role of Advanced Mineralogy and Emerging Technologies in Fast-Tracking Projects, De-Risking Development, and Optimizing Performance
10:00 - Armenia at the Crossroads of Critical Minerals, Connectivity and Peace
10:15 - Developing National Competencies for Nuclear-Industrial Partnerships for Mining Applications
