China earns $1.54 billion from rare-earth exports in H1-2011

BEIJING (Commodity Online) : Rare earth monopoly China earned a whopping $1.54 billion from the export of the precious minerals in the first half of this year.

According to China Non-Ferrous Metals Industry Association, country's export value surged 9.3 fold year on year while volume of rare earth ore, metals and mixtures products was steady compared with the same period of last year.

In the first half, the prices of rare earth products surged more than 200%, and even some rare earth products saw price increases of six to ten times.

However, the prices of rare earth metals in China have decreased more than 15% since July.

In mid-July, China raised its rare earth export quota for the second half of this year to 15,738 metric tons, 97.3% more than the 7,976 metric tons in the same period of last year.

For the first half of this year, China issued 14,446 metric tons of rare earth export quota.

For the whole of 2011, the country's rare earth export quota amounted to 30,184 metric tons, 74 metric tons less than in 2010.

Meanwhile, China said it will punish rare earth producers that fail to stick to a nationwide production quota after launching an inspection of the sector at the beginning of August.

According to Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), enterprises that exceed quotas or continue to employ environmentally destructive production techniques could have their quotas and licenses cancelled.

The ministry will also punish rare earth processors caught buying ore from mines that violate industry guidelines. Mines will also be forbidden from selling ore unless they have permission to produce.

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