Greenlandic minister woos Chinese investment

Ittoqqortoormiit, which means "big-house dwellers", is a settlement with a population of 452  in the Sermersooq municipality in eastern Greenland.[Photo/ people.com.cn]

BEIJING -- The Greenland government hopes to attract Chinese investment to its mining industry, an official from the world's largest island said on Tuesday.

Jens-Erik Kirkegaard, Greenland's Minister of Industry and Minerals, said the island has large amounts of mineral resources while China's economic development needs such resources to maintain growth.

"There is big room for Greenland and China to jointly explore commercial opportunities," said Kirkegaard, who led a delegation of Greenlandic companies to China to attend the China Mining 2013 conference,held in Tianjin on November 2-5.

In October, Greenland's parliament narrowly agreed to lift a ban on uranium mining, paving the way for the Arctic island's financial independance from the Kingdom of Denmark, which still has a say in its foreign affairs, defence and monetary policies.

The move will not only allow the mining of uranium deposits, but also make the mining of rare earths possible as uranium is often found mixed into rare earths, a cluster of minerals widely used in modern technologies from wind turbines to hybrid cars and smart phones.

Greenland is thought to have a large reserve of rare earths.

During his stay in China, the minister also visited a copper mining company in Jiangxi to seek business. Jiangxi, in east China, is also a key rare earth production base, where 36 percent of the country's middle and heavy rare earth deposits are estimated to be in the province's Ganzhou.

Greenland's latest decision on uranium mining has led to concerns from environmentalists about the consequences for the island's eco-system.

Addressing a press briefing at the Danish embassy in Beijing, Kirkegaard stressed that all mining activities on the island should be conducted "in an environmentally-friendly way".