SYDNEY, April 11 (Xinhua) -- The potential for the manufacturing of lithium batteries in Australia has been given a boost with the creation of the Future Battery Industries Cooperative Research Centre (CRC), at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT).

Announced on Thursday, the CRC will involve 58 industry, government and research partners, helping expand Australia’s lithium industry from mining to manufacturing.

So far the project has received 17 million U.S. dollars from the Australian federal government, and 78 million U.S. dollars from research partners.

Chair of the CRC Tim Shanahan said that as the world’s leading producer of lithium, Australia has a clear opportunity to benefit from investing further into the value chain.

Three areas of focus will be battery industry development, the processing of minerals, metals and materials for batteries, and the development of a new battery storage system.

Prof. Peter Talbot, who last year produced Australia’s first lithium-ion battery at QUT, said, “The CRC will be looking at doing it all in Australia, mine it, value add it, produce the components, make the batteries as I’ve shown in the example at QUT with our plant, put together the storage packs and then integrate it all with the power companies.”

Australia’s lithium exports have risen from 83 million U.S. dollars in 2012 to 558 million U.S. dollars in 2017 and are expected to be over 787 million U.S. dollars by 2020.