Rare earths are an important, non-renewable natural resource with increasingly widerapplications in economic and social development.

China is among the countries with relatively rich rare earth reserves. Since the 1950s,remarkable progress has been witnessed in China's rare earth industry. After many years ofeffort, China has become the world's largest producer, consumer and exporter of rare earthproducts.

While bringing benefits to mankind, the exploitation of rare earth has brought aboutincreasingly significant problems regarding this resource and the environment. In theexploitation and utilization of rare earth, the rational utilization and effective protection of theenvironment pose common challenges for the world at large. In recent years, China has takencomprehensive measures in the links of mining, production and exporting of rare earth goodsand strengthened efforts for the protection of the resource and the environment, endeavoringto ensure a sustainable and healthy development of this industry.

With the in-depth development of economic globalization, China is involved in more extensiveinternational exchanges and cooperation in the field of rare earth. Always honoring the rulesand living up to its commitments, China has provided the world with large quantities of rareearth products. It will continue to follow the WTO rules, strengthen scientific management of thisindustry and supply rare earth products to the global market, so as to make its due contributionto the development and prosperity of the world economy.

For some time now, some countries have been particularly fretful about the situation of China'srare earth industry and related policies, doing a lot of guesswork and conjuring up manystories. We hereby give a presentation about China's rare earth industry in order to furtherprovide the international community with a better understanding of this issue.