2010 will see a 40% cut in export quotas for rare earth metals from China, reports a Chinese newspaper. The 30,258t of export quota is a drop of nearly 20,000t compared to 2009 levels.

Nearly 3/4 of the quota is assigned to domestic firms, while 7,746t are for foreign-invested companies. The move sees production centred around a limited number of state-owned companies, to reduce corruption and the tight competition from small miners which has driven down market prices and had an adverse effect of the environment.

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