The German government earmarked about €1 billion ($1.1 billion) for raw materials investments as it seeks to reduce dependency on producers such as China for critical minerals, according to people familiar with the plan.

While Australia has long been a top-producing country when it comes to lithium, China has risen quickly to become not only the top lithium processing and refining country, but also a major miner of the commodity. In fact, China was the third largest lithium-p...