China Issues 13th Five Year Plan for the Rare Earth Industry

On October 18, 2016, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China (MIIT) issued the Rare Earth Industry Development Plan (2016-2020) to guide the rare earth industrys development for the 13th Five Year period covering from 2016 to 2020. The Plan aims to maintain the annual growth of the industry value added at 16.5% on average and have 12% of profit margin by 2020. The Plan identifies the following key tasks as development priorities for the next five years: promoting sustainable development, limiting the rare earth annual exploitation volume within 140,000 MT/year by 2020; promoting innovation, and exploring new functions and applications; promoting agglomeration and improving industrial structure; promoting green development and smart manufacturing; utilizing overseas resources and strengthening international cooperation; and developing new value chains. As supporting measures, the Plan calls for coordinating science and technology, fiscal, taxation, land resources, and financial policies with the industrial policy, establishing rare earth industry development fund, adequately utilizing existing government funds to support high-end application and smart manufacturing projects, establishing insurance compensation system for new materials development, increasing credit loan support, and supporting to obtain financing through stock and bond markets.