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The ban will remain in place until further notice and will apply to all minerals currently in transit, the ministry said.
According to Fastmarkets’ research, Zimbabwe was forecast to produce 124,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) in 2026, representing around 7% of global LCE supply for the year. The country accounts for approximately 15% of spodumene shipped into China, making it a significant supplier to the global lithium raw materials chain.
“The government expects the cooperation of the mining industry on this measure, which has been taken in the national interest,” the statement said.
The ministry added that the government was still committed to promoting “in-country value addition and beneficiation, compliance and accountability in the exportation of Zimbabwe’s mineral resources.”
Zimbabwe had previously announced that exports of lithium concentrate would be banned from January 2027 as part of a strategy to expand domestic processing capacity. The immediate suspension on February 25 suggested that the timeline has now been significantly accelerated.
Several Chinese lithium producers have established spodumene concentrate projects in Zimbabwe in recent years, including Sinomine Resource Group’s Bikita mine; Prospect Lithium Zimbabwe, owned by Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt; Yahua Industrial Group’s Kamativi lithium project; and Chengxin Lithium’s Sabi Star lithium mine.
Most of the spodumene from these projects has been shipped to China to feed vertically integrated lithium conversion operations, market participants said.
Two sources close to the matter confirmed the imposition of the export ban but declined to provide further details.
“The export ban is huge news. It means that those Chinese companies will need to turn to the spot spodumene market now that their vertically integrated spodumene supplies are cut off,” one trader said.
“This comes against a background when spodumene spot supply is tight and many major miners have sold out their spot cargoes for recent months,” a second trader added.
Market participants expected the export ban to provide short-term support to lithium and spodumene prices, with some sellers potentially choosing to hold spot units more tightly.
“It is expected to exacerbate the shortage of lithium resources this year,” Chandler Wu, Fastmarkets senior analyst, said. “The primary intention is to extend the depth of domestic lithium processing, retain more value within the country, and move toward greater resource nationalization. This stance is likely to intensify further while prices continue to rise.”
China imported 7,750,630 tonnes of spodumene in 2025, of which 1,204,072 tonnes originated from Zimbabwe – approximately 15% of total import volumes, according to Chinese customs data.
Zimbabwe has been intensifying efforts to increase local beneficiation and retain more value from its mineral resources.
In October 2025, Huayou Cobalt commissioned a lithium sulfate plant in Zimbabwe with a designed capacity of 50,000 tonnes per year, a step toward in-country processing.
The latest move signaled a firmer stance from the government, reflecting a broader trend among resource-rich nations to assert greater control over critical minerals and to ensure that more downstream value was captured domestically.
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