A draft revision to Japan's core critical-minerals policy would give the trade ministry a new tool to investigate a mineral supplier when its exit risks disrupting Japan's supply, and would require companies working on state-backed mineral projects to route cyberattack reports through the ministry to a Cabinet Secretariat cyber-coordination office. Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) opened public comment on this fourth revision of its Policy for Securing Stable Supply of Critical Minerals on September 4, 2026; submissions are due by October 4, 23:59 JST.
The most consequential change sits in a clause marked "newly established" in the ministry's own before-and-after comparison table, meaning no equivalent exists in the current text. Under Article 9-2 of the Economic Security Promotion Act, METI would be able to investigate the effect on Japan's mineral supply when a critical-minerals business's exit risks impairing that supply, and encourage the business to submit a supply-security plan as necessary. A companion clause under Article 11-2 lets the minister seek cooperation from raw-material suppliers and other parties when a certified operator may struggle to deliver on its approved plan and the minister judges this particularly necessary.
| Change | Legal basis | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| New investigation power | Article 9-2, Economic Security Promotion Act | METI can investigate the supply impact and encourage plan submission only when a business's exit risks disrupting critical-minerals supply |
| New supplier-cooperation request | Article 11-2, Economic Security Promotion Act | METI may seek (not compel) cooperation from raw-material suppliers when a certified project risks falling short of its approved plan and the minister deems it particularly necessary |
| Mandatory cyber-incident reporting | New clause in the policy's implementation-structure section | Certified suppliers must promptly report cyberattacks or suspected attacks to METI, which relays them to a Cabinet Secretariat cyber-coordination office |
| Cybersecurity chapter rewrite | Chapter 6, Section 3 of the policy | Coordination shifts to a Cabinet Secretariat cyber-coordination office; adds a star-rated supply-chain security scheme (from March 2027) and IoT labeling recommendations |
The exit-risk clause is not hypothetical. METI's own dependency data, cited in the draft, show China supplies roughly 55% of Japan's lithium imports and controls about 60% of global lithium smelting capacity, with even higher concentrations for graphite, gallium and several rare earths. A major supplier walking away from a project, whether through financial trouble, a rival country's export curbs, or a shift in strategy, is the kind of scenario the new investigation power is designed to catch early, though the ministry only steps in when that exit actually threatens supply.
The draft also inserts a reporting duty that does not exist today: certified suppliers must promptly tell the ministry, which relays the report to a Cabinet Secretariat cyber-coordination office, about any cyberattack or suspected attack, regardless of how narrow their government-backed project is. The policy's cybersecurity chapter is rewritten to route that coordination through this office rather than the previous cabinet-level arrangement, and it adds two supplier-facing schemes: a star-rated "SCS evaluation system" for supply-chain security, due to start operating from March 2027, and an IoT product labeling scheme called JC-STAR, with instructions for certified firms to push both standards onto their own suppliers.
The underlying policy, first issued in January 2023 and already revised three times, channels subsidies through the state-run minerals agency JOGMEC for exploration, mine development, smelting and technology projects, including a 2030 domestic-supply goal of roughly 100,000 tonnes a year of lithium and 90,000 tonnes of nickel to support a planned battery-manufacturing base. METI's mineral policy division is taking comments through the e-Gov portal until October 4; the ministry has not stated when a finalized revision would take effect.