Rare earths are widely used in agriculture, industry, military and other industries, is an important support for the manufacture of new materials, but also the relationship between cutting-edge defense technology development of key resources, known as the “land of all.” China is a major producer, export and consumer of rare earth minerals in the world, and with the increasingly important position of rare earths in national economy, aerospace and national defense strategies, the high quality of rare earth industry has become a major issue at present.
he construction of rational development, orderly production, efficient utilization, scientific and technological innovation, collaborative development of the new pattern of rare earth industry is the future direction of development. Since 2019, in order to strengthen the standardization of rare earth market construction, China’s development of rare earths frequently.
On January 4, 2019, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and 12 other ministries issued the Notice on the Continuous Strengthening of Order in the Rare Earth Industry, the first time a multi-departmental joint inspection mechanism was established, and a special inspection was carried out once a year to hold accountable for violations of laws and regulations, which means that rare earth rectification officially entered normalization. At the same time, the Notice also on the requirements of rare earth groups and intermediary organizations, how to guide the industry’s high-quality development and other aspects of further clear implementation, the continued healthy development of the rare earth industry will play a far-reaching impact.
On June 4-5, 2019, the National Development and Reform Commission held three meetings on the rare earth industry. The meeting was attended by industry experts, rare earth enterprises and the competent departments of origin, involving the main issues such as rare earth environmental protection, rare earth black industry chain, rare earth intensive and high-end development. For the meeting, the National Development and Reform Commission spokesman Meng Wei said that the National Development and Reform Commission is working with the relevant departments to collect the views and suggestions collected at the three symposiums, and will be on the basis of in-depth research and scientific demonstration, and urgently study and introduce relevant policy measures, We should give full play to the special value of rare earths as strategic resources.
Industry insiders believe that the rare earth industry will have further policy promotion, environmental inspection, indicator verification and strategic storage and a series of policies will be issued intensively, to promote the realization of the rare earth industrial structure reasonable, advanced scientific and technological level, effective protection of resources, orderly production and operation of the industry development pattern, and effectively play the special value of rare earths as strategic resources.
On September 20, 2019, the 2019 China Rare Earth Industry Climate Index Report (the “Report”) was officially released, jointly prepared by China Economic Information Agency and Baotou Rare Earth Products Exchange. In the second half of 2019, China’s rare earth industry business climate index stood at 123.55 points, in the “boom” range, the report said. That’s up 22.22 percent from last year’s 101.08 index. The rare earth industry has been running low for the first four months, rebounding sharply since mid-May, when the price index rose 20.09 per cent. China’s rare earth mining and smelting are the world’s dominant, according to the report. Last year, the world produced 170,000 tonnes of rare earth minerals and China produced 120,000 tonnes, or 71%. Because China’s smelting separation technology is world-leading and low-cost, even if there are rare earth resources abroad, the rare earth mine mined will need to go through China’s processing before deep processing.
China’s total exports of rare earths totaled 2.6 billion yuan in the first 10 months of 2019, down 6.9 percent from 2.79 billion yuan a year earlier, according to foreign trade data from the chinese customs. Two sets of data show that in the first 10 months of this year, China’s exports of rare earths fell by 7.9 per cent, while exports fell by 6.9 per cent, meaning that the price of Chinese exports of rare earths picked up from last year.
China’s domestic exports of rare earths have declined, but with increased demand for rare earths, China’s annual total rare earth mining control pointer reached the total control of the six major mining of rare earths control pointer 132,000 tons. Supply side, abundant supply, some merchants reduce prices, demand, orders are not as good as expected, so orders procurement is not much, a small number of replenishment according to demand, the actual volume is less. Due to the fundamentals of supply and demand, it is expected that the short-term operation will remain weak and stable.
Rare earth market price shock sits related to the nationwide environmental protection inspectors, rare earth production has special characteristics, especially some products have radiation hazards make environmental protection supervision tightened. Metal enterprises and downstream magnetic material enterprises buy weak, coupled with rare earth prices lower than the previous period, the wait-and-see mood is stronger, under strict environmental protection, a number of provinces rare earth separation enterprises have been discontinued, resulting in rare earth oxidemarket in general, especially some mainstream rare earth oxides, supply is normal, rare earth market price trend decline.
Medium heavy rare earth aspects, the opening of the China-Myanmar border, after the market is uncertain, the domestic supply increases, so that upstream merchants mentality is unstable, downstream merchants cautiously buy goods, the overall transaction downturn. The main oxide products mainly fall, the downstream demand is less, it is difficult to form a support for the price;
Light rare earth, radon oxide prices first lower and then stable, downstream only some enterprises according to demand procurement, the actual transaction is not much, the transaction price continues to go down. However, by the Sichuan separation enterprises to stop production, magnetic material enterprises stage replenishment and other factors, downstream merchants think that the market after oxidizing radon decline space is limited, began to replenish inventory, the market low-cost supply reduced, is expected to improve the future transaction.
The trend of domestic rare earth market prices in 2019 shows “polarization”, coupled with the country’s consolidation of the rare earth industry is becoming more and more serious, the industry is experiencing a pain, but with the increase in rare earth mining volume and the development of new energy vehicles faster and faster, the development of rare earth industry is expected to improve in 2020, Domestic heavy rare earth market prices or will maintain high prices, light rare earth market will also be affected by the price of different degrees of higher.