Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are offering Europe lithium, tungsten and other strategic materials, but increasingly on terms that keep more processing, technology and value creation at home.
~€445m Potential HMS Bergbau investment | >140 projects TMK proposed project portfolio | €50m Societe Generale mandate
TASHKENT/ASTANA, Nov. 4 – Europe’s search for alternatives to concentrated critical-mineral supply chains is moving deeper into Central Asia, but Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are making clear that the next phase of cooperation will be built around processing and industrial investment rather than simple exports of raw material.
The shift matters for European manufacturers because the region combines geological potential with a political willingness to court Western capital. It also sits on transport routes that can connect Asian production to European buyers without relying entirely on Russian infrastructure. The commercial model, however, is changing: governments in Astana and Tashkent want refining, conversion, component production and technical know-how to stay closer to the mine.
Germany and Kazakhstan endorsed a 2026-2028 roadmap in late September covering industrial cooperation, mineral extraction and processing, and higher-value production in Kazakhstan. German company HMS Bergbau is pursuing a lithium extraction and processing project in eastern Kazakhstan with potential investment of roughly €445 million, subject to confirmation of commercially viable reserves.
Uzbekistan is advancing a similar strategy through the state-owned Uzbekistan Technological Metals Complex, or TMK. The company produces tungsten and molybdenum products and says Germany was its first export market. It also reports sales into Belgium and the Netherlands, giving the Central Asian producer an existing commercial bridge into European industry rather than only a future policy relationship.
The scale of Uzbekistan’s pitch is broad. At a Berlin roadshow in September, TMK presented more than 140 proposed investment projects with an estimated combined value of about €3.7 billion. On Oct. 16, it signed a preliminary term sheet with France’s Societe Generale for pre-export financing, following a June mandate agreement to arrange €50 million to support production capacity and exports.
The financing discussion widened again on Nov. 4 when TMK met representatives of the French Development Agency and FERDI to discuss international funding for critical-mineral extraction, deep processing and higher-value products. The emphasis on bankability, sustainability and project preparation suggests European engagement is beginning to move from diplomatic declarations toward individual financing structures.
For Europe, Central Asia is attractive because it offers several materials that sit directly inside industrial policy priorities, including lithium and tungsten. Yet the region’s value is not only geological. It is also becoming a test of whether European capital can compete with Chinese finance and procurement while accepting that producer countries want domestic industrialisation as part of the bargain.
That creates a different risk profile. European investors must assess resource quality, permitting, water and power availability, logistics through the Middle Corridor, project governance and the ability to build internationally acceptable environmental and supply-chain controls. A mining licence alone is no longer enough; bankability increasingly depends on the entire mine-to-market chain.
The opportunity is therefore larger than securing tonnes of concentrate. Europe can use Central Asia to diversify extraction, but the more durable opening may be in processing equipment, engineering, project finance, digital mine systems, laboratories and long-term offtake tied to traceable production.
Central Asia is not becoming a simple replacement for China. It is emerging as a second industrial platform whose governments expect Europe to invest in the value chain. For European miners, banks and manufacturers, that makes the region more complex – and potentially more strategic – than a conventional sourcing play.
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