OECD Pushes Critical-Mineral Traceability as Price Floors and Procurement Rules Expand

Highlights

• OECD-IEA survey of 90 companies finds traceability adoption at 92% among traders but only 55% among miners and under 30% among smelters.
• The report recommends embedding traceability into price floors and strategic stockpiles to ensure subsidies reach intended supply chains.
• China's Rare Earth Management Regulations already mandate product-flow records across the full supply chain, backed by a national traceability platform.
• Nearly three-quarters of surveyed companies plan to increase traceability investment, signaling it is becoming core economic infrastructure.
• REEx sees chain-of-custody data systems linking mine to OEM as the next strategic layer in Western critical-mineral industrial policy.