Bolivia’s first lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant has opened in La Placa, a town near the Uyuni Salt Flat— the world’s largest lithium reserve.
The factory has been built by Chinese battery manufacturing company LinYi Dake from Shandong. A small team from LinYi Dake will oversee the plant that will employ 21 Bolivian operators.
The factory will begin full capacity output in April. Corporacion Minera de Bolivia said capacity would be 1000 cellphone batteries and 40 EV batteries a month.
The dried-up seabed contains more than 100m tons of lithium, according to the Bolivian government, in an area that covers 10,000 square kilometres. The area is already home to a lithium carbonate processing plant to process raw lithium.
In 2013 the Bolivian government announced it is investing $900m in the development of lithium mining and processing operations.
