China creates rare earth strategic reserves: Report

A worker waters the site of a rare earth metals mine. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

BEIJING - CHINA is building up strategic reserves of rare earth metals in a move that could give it better control over the resource so indispensable to high tech products, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Storage facilities have been built in recent months in the northern region of Inner Mongolia with the capacity to hold more than the 39,813 tonnes of the metals China exported last year, the paper said.

But details of the strategic reserves have not been made public, it added on Monday.

China controls about 95 per cent of the global trade for the 17 minerals that collectively make up the rare earth metals market.

The metals, prized for their special chemical or electromagnetic properties, are used in making mobile phones, batteries for hybrid cars, wind turbines, flat-screen televisions and other high tech products.

According to a report issued by the US Geological Survey in November, about 36 per cent of the world's reserves of the metals are in China. -- AFP