New rare earth criteria to tip industry shakedown   

中国提高稀土业准入门槛 三分之一矿企或不达标

中国工业和信息化部6日发布《稀土行业准入条件》，按照该标准，将近三分之一的矿山企业，接近二分之一的冶炼分离企业可能未达到要求。

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.