Chips Exchange Rare Earths, China Limits Rare Metals' Supply

The rare earths are 16 strategically critical metals necessary for manufacturing nearly all high-tech products, from smartphones to guided missiles. According to foreign media reports, China seeks to control the global supply of rare earth minerals or may search for the transactions of advanced chips with rare minerals.

As an important supplier of raw materials globally, China is currently reducing exports of various raw materials. Considering raw material export measures, critical materials such as rare earth, magnesium, and tungsten will be applied more in domestic to manufacture higher-quality products. It also makes a lot of importing countries into a difficult situation.

According to the German Focus weekly, the demand for raw materials such as rare earth, magnesium, or tungsten in the Chinese domestic market is increasing substantially. In the past 4 years, the domestic market has widely used cobalt and lithium in the high-tech industry field. Demand for raw materials has increased by more than 10%, which means that some industrial countries will face the shortage of raw materials, and the competition for the production of high-quality materials and industrial products will become more intense.

A supercomputer using a large number of rare earths can design cutting-edge weapons. According to German statistics, the export volume of the Chinese market is showing a declining trend for rare earths that are of great concern to all countries. According to statistics from the Chinese General Administration of Customs, rare earth exports in December 2019 were 3657.3 tons, a year-on-year decrease of 32.5%. In the first two months of 2020, Chinese rare earth exports were 5489.2 tons, with a monthly average of 2745.6 tons, a decrease of 17.3%.

In this regard, the domestic industry voice pointed out that the decline in exports of key raw materials such as rare earths will not only help reduce environmental pollution but also help China further promote the development of high-tech industries. As well to boost the advanced chips industries in the country.

The analysis believes that mining and refining crucial raw materials such as rare earth elements in China occupy more than 95% of the global market share, making the country the world's largest supplier of the rare metals. As well as leading many cities in the country to be major polluting city due to mineral mining.

Presently, after actively responding to domestic calls for reducing the extraction of rare earths. China will supply high-quality rare earth metals with higher price quantitatively. It can also make transactions with the United States on 5G or advanced chips.

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