Japan Today reported that Toyota Tsusho Corporation plans to develop a business around rare earth minerals used in hybrid car motors as early as 2013 at a western island of Indonesia in a bid to diversify supply sources. The Nagoya based trading house expects to procure rare earth minerals from leftover products of refined tin at Indonesia’s Bangka Island.

According to its local research carried out since summer 2009, the leftover products contain enough rare earth minerals for commercial use, including neodymium and dysprosium. Toyota Tsusho has been developing rare earth projects at India and Vietnam to secure stable supply of the minerals on the back of China’s stagnant exports to Japan.

(Sourced from www.japantoday.com)