Resumen de China's rare earths policies struggle to stem supply
As well as production, China's supply reform policy for rare earths also covers storage of the minerals. In May, the government launched a tender where rare earths-consuming companies can bid for rare earths to store as inventory. This caused a short term bounce of 5-10% in the price of some rare earths, although the market fervour around stockpiling has since died down, despite the incessant circulation of rumours that the Chinese government plans to create a large national rare earths repository.
The progress of efforts to establish rare earths technology hubs in China has been harder to track. In 2015, Baotou in Inner Mongolia was named as a pilot city for a rare earths industry upgrade under a two-year plan running from 2015 to 2017. Under the scheme, low-value rare earths processing would be phased out or transitioned to production of high-tech advanced materials and there would be a state sponsored research programme into new applications. Baotou received Chinese renminbi (Rmb) 300m ($44.6m*) from central government and Rmb 200m ($29.7m) from local government to support a total of 36 upgrade projects.
