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This is an important step taken by these three companies in signing this agreement with the national government through Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos, to carry out all the work necessary to test their technologies. They have been subject to a rigorous evaluation by YLB of many companies that have shown interest in coming to Bolivia to work and export and industrialize our Bolivian lithium together with the national government.

A few months ago, we presented here the contract for its subscription and authorization by the Bolivian Legislative Assembly of URANIUM ONE, a Russian company, and CBC, a Chinese company, which have completed this initial phase of showing the virtues of each of the technologies they have for our country.

I remember perfectly well when we were in a Latin American meeting with the European Union, where the European countries also showed their interest in coming to Bolivia. I was also in an important meeting with the President of France who showed his predisposition, and we are happy to know that a French company is also in the process of coming to Bolivia to produce lithium with us. In the same way, we spoke with the German authorities, and now we have an Australian-Bolivian company that is going to operate in Bolivia with these agreements with Bolivian lithium.

We also have an Argentinean company that has acquired a Chinese technology that is currently being applied in the Argentinean sister republic in a salt flat there, and that is also coming to Bolivia to show us its technology for the production of lithium carbonate and to reach industrialization. But it is in this phase in which they have to demonstrate the qualities and virtues of the technology and the adaptation of the same towards the quality of lithium that we have in our different salt flats.

In this case, EAU Lithium Pty Ltd, an Australian-German company, is the one that will work in 3 important salt flats: Coipasa, in Oruro, Pastos Grandes, perhaps our richest lithium reservoir in the south of Potosí, and also a salt flat that for the first time enters the map of the economic projection that is Empexa, a salt flat that we share with the sister republic of Chile and that is on the border. These works will be used and will serve to establish sovereignty because on the other side of the border Chile is producing in this salt flat that we share and we on this side of the border in our country are going to establish sovereignty with the company EAU Lithium Pty Ltd by also carrying out the works of agreement in the Empexa salt flat.

Also, the company TECPETROL, an Argentinean company, will be operating in Pastos Grandes, and the French-Bolivian company GEOLITIC ACTARIS again in the Coipasa salt flat. That is to say, today Oruro receives the largest number of companies interested in coming to work in the Coipasa salt flat; and we have in Potosi, Pastos Grandes and Empexa which will be the salt flats completing the panorama of the salt flats that we have in our country that are susceptible to have lithium, produce it and be able to benefit the Bolivian population with the resources that these will generate in the future.

We are taking an important step, therefore, again in the objective of industrializing our lithium, to advance in this process that has been long, tedious, complicated but we are advancing, we already have two contracts in the legislative assembly for their corresponding approval by the assembly, but we also continue working because Bolivia is the first world reserve of lithium, we thought we had 21 million tons of reserve and we have 23 million, we are by far the first reserve.

And the national government's policy is not to close itself to a single company and give it all the lithium we have in our country, our strategy has been to attract the best technology that can be adapted to our salt flats and that can produce the best and highest quality lithium we can have in our natural resources. That is why this day is very important for our brothers of Oruro where our intention was always to arrive, we had talked with the governor about exploiting the salt flats in the department of Oruro and unfortunately one and another problem arose and we could not move forward, now it is being realized, now it is a reality.

These agreements that we have with these companies that our company Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos is signing today are making possible the dream of many orureños, today the orureño lithium is going to be explored first with technologies and we are sure that we are going to be successful and then in about 3 months these companies will have to test their technology and we will be starting the negotiation to sign a contract for the exploitation of Bolivian lithium in its different salt flats: Coipasa and the salt flat of Pastos Grandes and Empexa, which today is already on the map as an important natural resource for our country.

We are sure that the work of these companies will be a serious, very responsible work, especially meeting the deadlines, here what we are interested in is that the deadlines are met to start with the second stage, which has to do with the contract that would be signed with YLB and the companies that can demonstrate the quality of their technology to exploit Bolivian lithium.

Therefore, I congratulate the YLB team and the companies that have been present today to sign, there are still others that are on the way to sign, there is much interest from foreign capital, to come to Bolivia and help us in the exploitation and industrialization of lithium in our country, therefore, we will continue with these activities to sign agreements for our strategic natural resources for our country, which we want to be of benefit to all Bolivians. Besides being, of course, one of the central elements and pillars of our government policy, which aims at the industrialization of the country and aims at diversifying the economy by giving it a broad base.

When we talk about a Bolivia with a broad-based economy, we are saying that we do not only want to depend on gas as the main product to generate income for the country, because it is clear that when there is no exploration and there are no good prices, there are problems in the national economy. Therefore, what we want is to diversify: we want lithium, we want iron, we want the industrialization of zinc, which is already on its way, and we also have other natural resources and raw materials that we can industrialize, and this totality is part of the broad base of the national economy.

Of course it is the most difficult task, it is the task that will take us the longest, but it is undoubtedly the right path; we do not want to do short term tasks that do not solve the country's problems structurally, we aim at solving the structural problems that our Bolivia has, and it is this mono dependence we had on a product that now we want to give it a diversified commendation that provides income to Bolivians, that is the path that our national government has adopted.

While thanking everyone for their presence, we wish the best of success to the companies that have signed agreements with YLB today.

Transcript of the speech by the President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia at the signing of the agreement for the testing of direct lithium extraction technology on December 3, 2024.