China’s Sichuan Yahua Industrial Group said on Tuesday it had secured a six-month export quota for lithium concentrates from Zimbabwe, two months after Africa’s top lithium producer suspended exports of the key battery material.
The quota will be sufficient to ensure normal production at its Kamativi mine, Yahua Group added in response to a question on an investor online Q&A platform affiliated with the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.
Yahua is going through the procedure to resume exports, it added.
The comments came after Zimbabwe granted export quotas to two Chinese mining firms for lithium concentrates.
The firms, Chengxin Lithium and Sinomine Resources, run lithium mining facilities in Zimbabwe, state media said on Monday.
Zimbabwe suspended exports of all raw minerals and lithium concentrates in February, citing alleged malpractice and leakage.
It told producers it would introduce lithium concentrate export quotas earlier this month, with conditions that included commitments for more local processing.
In 2025, Zimbabwe exported 1.13 million tons of lithium-bearing spodumene concentrate to China, making up about 15% of China’s lithium concentrate imports last year.
Huayou Cobalt said it had not received any notice from the Zimbabwe government, according to Monday’s state media report. Huayou is also among Chinese investors in Zimbabwe, dominating its lithium mining industry.
(By Ethan Wang, Ryan Woo and Dylan Duan; Editing by Alison Williams and Clarence Fernandez)
