On the evening of September 24, XTC announced that the company signed a "Cooperation framework agreement" with China Rare Earth Group and planned to establish two joint ventures. Among them, China Rare Earth Group holds 51%, and XTC or its holding subsidiaries hold 49%. The joint venture will jointly operate rare earth mines and rare earth smelting and separation industries controlled by XTC (including its controlling shareholders and its controlling subsidiaries). The two sides strive to ensure that the recoverable rare earth oxide (REO) reserves in Fujian Province remain above 200,000 tons in the long term. In addition, within 2-3 years after the cooperation, the joint venture company also plans to invest in a new 5,000-10,000 tons of separation capacity in Fujian Province. XTC said that the signing of the agreement is conducive to accelerating the strategic coordination between the central and local areas and jointly promoting the high-quality development of the rare earth industry.

According to the "Several Opinions on Promoting the Sustainable and Healthy Development of Rare Earth Industry" issued by The State Council in 2011, the state has set up six rare earth groups, namely Northern Rare Earth, Chinalco Group, XTC, Minmetals Group, Guangdong Rare Earth and Southern Rare Earth.

In December 2021, the central government integrated Minmetals rare Earth, Southern Rare Earth, and China Rare Earth to form a rare earth central enterprise - China Rare Earth Group, making the six rare earth groups into four rare earth groups, namely Northern Rare Earth, China Rare Earth Group, XTC and Guangdong Rare Earth. In the field of medium and heavy rare earth in the South, the main rare earth enterprises are China Rare Earth Group, XTC and Guangdong Rare Earth.

In the case that China Rare Earth Group has reached in-depth cooperation with XTC, the integration of rare earth resources in the South is still the last key link, and the cooperation progress between China rare Earth Group and Guangdong rare earth is particularly noteworthy in the industry.

The dominance of rare earth in the north is obvious

In 2023, China's first batch of rare earth mining total control indicators in 120,000 tons, smelting and separation total control indicators in 115,000 tons. Among them, China North Rare Earth (Group) High-tech Co., Ltd. has the largest amount of rare earth mining and distribution, and the total amount of rare earth ore and smelting and separation products is 154,300 tons, accounting for 65.68%; Followed by China Rare Earth Group Co., LTD., with a total of 68,900 tons, accounting for 29.30%.

Industry development prospect and trend forecast

Rare earth is an important non-renewable strategic resource, and is an indispensable key element for transforming traditional industries, developing emerging industries and national defense science and technology industries. In order to promote industrial development, the state has actively rectifies the chaos of the industry in recent years, and vigorously promotes the optimization of the supply structure of the rare earth industry. It is expected that in the future for a long time, the state will continue to implement domestic rare earth mining, smelting and separation total control, and the development of the domestic rare earth industry will be further standardized. In addition, due to the tight supply and demand of the rare earth market, the state has actively promoted the conservation and comprehensive reuse of rare earth resources in recent years, and the recycling of rare earth waste has become a new demand. In the future, under the background of the state control of rare earth production and the continuous expansion of downstream rare earth demand, the Forward-looking Industry Research Institute believes that the demand for rare earth recycling will further expand.