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Die Chinesen scheinen Erfolg zu haben mit ihrer Strategie BEIJING—China is cautiously using rare-earth resources as bait for foreign investment that could bring in sophisticated technologies that it needs. Industry and government officials have begun talking about a Chinese government plan to offer access to its rare-earth resources—which are used in products such as hybrid-car batteries and missiles and are under strict export restrictions—to get companies including electronics manufacturers and auto makers to set up rare-earth-processing plants in China. The government hasn't announced such a plan, but when asked about it, a senior official with China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said last week that while China has used a "technology for market" strategy before—offering foreign companies low labor costs and access to its fast-growing market—"now we have the expression 'technology for resources.' " The official cited the rare-earth market as workable for this strategy, but warned: "Difficulties remain if we don't handle it well." He declined to elaborate, citing the sensitivity and complicated nature of the issue. China controls around 95% of the world's rare-earth output, a near-monopoly it has slowly built with the help of its export quotas to achieve higher prices for the ores, which include obscure elements such as dysprosium and neodymium. The official's comments follow China's move in July to decrease its rare-earth shipment by 72% for the second half of this year to 7,976 metric tons. The latest move to restrict exports of the metals caused an uproar in the global market. China has accelerated the speed and intensity of consolidating the fragmented industry and has been cutting down the export quota for rare earth since 2005 to gain more clout on pricing the rare metals. In addition to the July price increase, China has also indicated that the export quota for the coming years will be below 35,000 tons a year, which will further hurt rare-earth supply, just as demand surges for the kind of environment-friendly products that use rare earth. The sharp decline of the export quota will cause a shortage of around 20,000 tons of rare earth for international users this year, said Zhang Zhong, president of China's largest rare-earth producer, Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare-Earth (Group) Hi-Tech Co. Against the backdrop of the shortage, Mr. Zhang expects that plenty of foreign companies will start moving their rare-earth-processing plants to China as early as this year. Foreign involvement offers regions rich in rare earth a chance to turn into high-technology centers. Resource-rich regions all want to expand into the more-profitable downstream processing sectors instead of just supplying the raw materials, said a government official with Baotou city in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, one of China's major mining centers. Around 50 foreign companies are already operating in the Baotou Rare Earth Hi-Tech Zone, including France's Rhodia SA, and Korea Development Bank recently signed a cooperation agreement with Baotou Hi-tech Zone to encourage Korean electronics companies and auto makers to establish processing plants alone or with Chinese partners. —Yajun Zhang, with contributions from Lee Vincent and Lee Jung-Ah http://online.wsj.com/article/SB2000142405274870332100457542… |
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| aus der Diskussion: | GWG Megatrend Rare Earth - Seltene Erden |
| Autor (Datum des Eintrages): | 4now (16.08.10 23:12:00) |
| Beitrag: | 1,602 von 10,226 (ID:39994115) |
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