Dinson Holding has signed a cooperation agreement with Dongtou district under Wenzhou city, where the world's top nickel and stainless steel producer is headquartered, according to a post on Tsingshan's official wechat account.

China, with an output of 395,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate in 2022, is the world's top smelter of the metal chiefly used in new energy vehicles and the energy storage sectors.

Tsingshan-owned Yongqing Technology and new energy companies including GEM and Zhejiang Weiming Environment Protection, invested 8 billion yuan ($1.12 billion)in Dongtou to build up a battery material industry park, according to a notice by Wenzhou government in March.

Tsingshan also has access to lithium resources via its investment in Zimbabwe.

($1 = 7.1190 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Siyi Liu and Dominique Patton; editing by David Evans)