China’s near monopoly on rare earth metals production is diminishing, but still dominant. China’s market share of rare earth production has dropped from 97% a decade ago, to 70% in 2022. Rare earth minerals are critical to many important climate action technologies including magnets for renewable energy generation such as wind turbines, electric vehicles, batteries, phosphors for LED lighting, and more.
Chinese media Xincaifu reported that 100% equity of Guangdong Rare Earth Group was transferred to China Rare Earth Group on January 1, 2024. The number of Chinese rare earth producers has now been reduced from four to three, consolidating the industry in a time of rising demand and increasing global competition for rare earth production.
The reason for China’s falling market share of production is other countries increasing their production, including Australia, Myanmar, and particularly Vietnam, which increased its rare earth production by ten fold in 2022 over the previous year.
In another move to considate its control of the rare earth market, China imposed export restrictions on rare earth processing technology, on December 21st, 2023. This move can also be seen as the latest escallation of the trade war between China and the West, especially the US. More information is available here and here.
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