"The project will help India strengthen lithium supplies, while developing lithium mining and downstream sectors of both the countries," mines minister Pralhad Joshi said in a post on X.

India, among the world's top greenhouse gas emitters, has been pursuing overseas pacts to secure key minerals in resource-rich countries such as Australia, Argentina and Chile.

The deal, signed with an Argentinian state-run enterprise, gives KABIL exploration and developmental rights for commercial production.

India's top bureaucrat in the mining ministry, V L Kantha Rao, had said in December that the country was in preliminary discussions with Bolivia to acquire lithium assets.

($1 = 82.8330 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Varun Vyas and Neha Arora; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)