CHINA would step up its controls over the mining of rare earth and release new industry standards to cut pollution, a minister and domestic media said Friday, after the world s biggest supplier cut export quotas for the minerals.
China, which owns one-third of the world s rare earth reserves and produces about 97 percent of the global supply of the vital metals, slashed its export quota by 35 percent for the first half of 2011 compared with a year earlier, saying it wanted to conserve reserves and protect the environment.
China would strengthen the supervision and management of mineral resources mining ... and deepen control over rare earth mining capacity and extraction, Minister of Land and Resources Xu Shaoshi said on a Web cast on the ministry s Web site.
Xu said China s campaign against illegal rare earth mining and effort to better manage the industry had achieved notable results.
Meanwhile, new environmental standards, described as stringent by an expert who helped draft the rules, would limit the amount of permissible pollutants in each liter of waste water, China Daily said.
Under the rules, expected to pinch rare earth miners with raised environmental protection costs, levels of ammonia nitrogen would be cut from 25 milligrams to 15 milligrams per liter, and radioactive elements and phosphorus emissions would be reduced.
The new regulations could be formally unveiled as soon as February after being approved by China s Ministry of Environmental Protection in December, China Daily said.
It added that China was considering the creation of a rare earth industry association and a governmental unit to prevent more mining abuses.
China has said other countries should share the burden of mining the metals. Illegal mining practices and over-exporting rare earth have hurt China s environment and depleted its resources, it says.(SD-Agencies)
