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Rare Earth

December 28, 2010 by · Comments Off on Rare Earth 

Rare Earth, (AFP) – China sets up a group of rare earth industry, which will price negotiations with foreign buyers, an official said Tuesday that Beijing is tightening its grip on the export of precious metals.

The China Rare Earth Industry Association to be launched in May and has already recruited 93 member companies, Caifeng Wang told reporters on the sidelines of an industry forum.

Wang, a former official of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, a leading departments supervise the industry, is setting up the group.

“The association must consider the application of (Chinese) companies will have specific tasks in areas such as exports of rare earth and exchanges with foreign countries, she said, adding that the group will conduct talk’s prices with foreign buyers.

“We’re on the frontline and to cooperate with the government to serve businesses.”

China produces over 95 percent of rare earths in the world, which are essential to the manufacture of the 21st century from iPods to cars with low emissions for wind turbines.

Beijing has moved to tighten controls on the elements raging against the heavily polluting producers, reduced quotas for overseas shipments and export tax hike.

Japanese industry sources, China cut exports temporarily earlier this year during a territorial row between Asia’s two largest economies.

While China has denied stopping exports, last week the United States has called for Beijing not to use the controls on metals as a “weapon” to serve political interests.

Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming during a visit to Washington earlier this month, denied any political motivation on the export of rare earth.

Chen said Beijing was likely to restrict mining because of environmental concerns and that Chinese companies were also affected.

Wang said she believed that the export quota for 2011 would not be significantly reduced from this year and would still “be sufficient to meet domestic and international demand.”

The quota for this year was 30,300 tons, down 39 percent from 2009, according to government figures.

Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved.

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