New rare earth criteria to tip industry shakedown   

Beijing (CNS) -- On August 6, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) released the Admittance Thresholds for the Rare Earth Industry, setting standards companies will have to meet with respect to production scale, processing procedures and technology, and resource utilization.

Raising the minimum admittance standards will not only prevent abuses that result from vicious competition, but also elevate production and operation quality across the industry, said Jia Yinsong, director of the Rare Earth Office of MIIT.

Jia expects one third of the mining companies and fully half of the smelting operations will fail to meet the threshold criteria and will face the options of merging or restructuring.