Lithium carbonate most-active contract rose more than 4.00% intraday, trading at 173,900 yuan/ton.

The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and three other ministries issued a joint notice launching an entrepreneurship-model guidance campaign. It directs promotion of the "technology commercialization + entrepreneurship" model by improving discovery, training, deployment and protection mechanisms for tech-innovation talent, supporting tech talent startups, expanding public services for researcher entrepreneurship, and backing researcher R&D and commercialization. The notice mandates clearing the "last mile" of technology transfer, establishing a regular smart supply–demand matching mechanism for R&D outputs, developing a professional technical-manager cadre and speeding up matching of mature technologies. It also calls for tiered entrepreneurship capacity programs, cultivation of skilled-entrepreneur leaders and branded skill-labor services with standardized training to raise startup success rates. Separately, it promotes a "livelihood-demand + entrepreneurship" model to identify consumer-facing projects and develop personalized niche consumer startups.

U.S. Defense Minister Hegseth said the U.S., not Iran, controls the Strait of Hormuz.