Chile’s plan for state control in lithium dismays business

By EVA VERGARA and DANIEL POLITI
Associated Press

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — The Chilean government’s newly announced plan to have the state take a majority stake in the lithium industry has disconcerted business leaders. But analysts cautioned Friday that the proposal appears to try to strike a middle ground between competing interests. President Gabriel Boric announced in a national broadcast Thursday night that private companies will have to partner with the government in exploiting Chile’s lithium, a metal used to make rechargeable batteries. Boric says the state will take a controlling interest in each partnership, leading some to call it a nationalization of the industry. Other disagree. One analyst says that the plan is more “a quasi-nationalization in that the playing field will now be leveled in favor of the state.”