Fan's investment group's progress in the African mining industry has finally made another opponent worry.

Major Japanese consortiums have begun to pay close attention to the mineral investment issues of Fan Investment Group in Africa. As a country with scarce resources, Japan has great ambitions for overseas minerals, especially for investment in iron ore.

But this time, the problem of iron ore in Africa is a bit strange. The original Europeans wanted to use China's connections and irregular policies to achieve that while obtaining a large amount of metal titanium, they could also export iron ore at high prices. However, because of Fan Wubing's awareness, it was impossible to steal chickens and lose rice. Today, the titanium iron mixed ore is firmly in the hands of Fan's Investment Group.

However, the Japanese also believes that even if Fan's Investment Group has ownership of several large iloxane mixed ore, it is unlikely for Chinese people who do not have corresponding separation and ore dressing technology to solve this global problem. Even in Japan at present, there is no better way to achieve this goal.

Despite this, this also made the Japanese side see the enthusiasm of Fan Investment Group for overseas mineral resources, which made them feel threatened. After all, there are so many mineral resources in the world. If Fan Investment Group gets involved, the smaller the development space left for the Japanese. This is untolerable.

Previously, when investing in Australian iron ore projects, the Japanese felt that they were one step behind Fan's Investment Group, resulting in a huge iron ore missing. This time, Fan's Investment Group began to build an industrial base in Africa. The Japanese believed that Fan's Investment Group could never be allowed to continue to expand in mineral resources, otherwise, Japan's mineral policy would be on the verge of bankruptcy.

What made the Japanese particularly angry was that the places where Fan's Investment Group traveled, the prices of mineral resources sold in various countries have risen sharply, making it increasingly difficult for them to realize their idea of ​​getting cheap. This is a bad news.

If Japan has a large investment in resources, the impact of the entire national economy will be quite large, which is a weight that the Japanese cannot bear.

Fortunately, this time the SARS epidemic broke out in China. At present, the whole country is busy fighting SARS and preventing and controlling the epidemic. Especially Singapore has jumped out and openly attacked the Chinese government's mistakes in epidemic prevention and control, setting off a wave of international championships, which makes the Japanese feel that there is an opportunity.

Not long ago, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region officially issued a document stating that the strategic resources of rare earths within the autonomous region are exclusively operated by the Rare Earth Application Technology Development Corporation, a subsidiary of Fan Investment Group. At the same time, the five southern provinces and regions jointly signed a joint action plan for the development and supervision of rare earth resources. The Rare Earth Technology Research Institute, a subsidiary of Fan Investment Group, convened a symposium for major rare earth enterprises to discuss the rare earth export work arrangements for next year. The rare earth export quota may be further reduced.

However, the Rare Earth Industry Association, led by Fan Investment Group, also stated that China's rare earth export restrictions only target rare earth raw materials, but encourage the export of rare earth processing finished products. This statement also reveals the purpose of the national rare earth strategy. It is no longer a raw material exporter, but hopes to introduce more deep processing technologies and seek the right to speak in the industrial chain.

As the Chinese government and Fan Investment Group strengthened control over rare earth resources, developed countries that had previously relied heavily on China's rare earth exports have begun to transfer deep processing projects to China, or look for or restart rare earth resource development elsewhere.

For example, Americans have considered restarting the development of domestic rare earth minerals to deal with the monopoly of China's rare earth industry led by Fan Investment Group.

After many European and American countries protested against China's rare earth strategy, Japan, one of the biggest beneficiaries of China's cheap rare earths, also joined the protest camp.

Japanese officials last week called on China to expand rather than restrict the export of rare earth resources. The Japanese Ministry of Trade said that since China announced the reduction of exports of rare earth resources, the market price of some rare earth elements has risen by 200%. The Japanese Ministry of Trade also said that although other countries such as the United States also have rare earth resources, China is the only relatively cheap producer. However, since the Fan Investment Group formed a de facto monopoly, international rare earth prices have also begun to rise rapidly, seriously damaging the interests of countries such as Japan.

Japan said that if China cannot change this monopoly behavior, then Japan will also consider taking some necessary measures to respond.

Just after the Japanese announced these policies, Japan also criticized the mistakes of the Chinese central government in preventing and controlling SARS, believing that SARS will destroy China's economic development achievements over the past 20 years.

At this time, the senior management also realized that whether it was Singapore that jumped out first or Japan that jumped out later, their goal was very simple. They wanted to actually exchange China for actual benefits by starting from China at critical moments. If they wanted to shut up, they would definitely have to pay them a hush money. Singapore hoped to enter China's financial industry that has been closed, while the Japanese coveted China's system resources.

These two guys are not good birds.

Since rare earth resources are crucial to the production of computers, mobile phones, and low-carbon cars, which are booming industries in Japan, China's rare earth selling order and the resulting price increase have made Japanese companies very nervous. It is reported that Japanese Congress officials and cabinet assistants from the Ministry of Trade have gone to China to express concerns about the rise in rare earth prices to relevant departments. Japan also hopes to reiterate this requirement in the Sino-Japanese economic talks held next week.

The total global reserves of rare earth resources are 90 million tons, of which China's rare earth resources reserves account for only 30% of the world, the CIS resource reserves account for 22% of the world, and the United States accounts for 15%. With 30% of the world's reserves, China has supplied more than 95% of the world's demand, which is called gold selling at a bargain price. Due to the low price of rare earths in China, the United States has been happy to close its own rare earth mines since 1985 and import all of them from China. Japan also imports a large number of Chinese rare earths for hoarding and strategic reserves.

Previous statistics from the China Rare Earth Society show that before Fan's Investment Group controlled the domestic import and export of rare earths, China's rare earth production was about 120,000 tons, supplying more than 95% of the global demand. Except for China, Russia's rare earth production was 1,500 tons, the United States' one thousand tons, and India's fifty tons. Although China's rare earth production was the first in reserves, output and exports, it did not obtain the pricing power of rare earths.

However, the application value of rare earths in the industrial field is becoming increasingly prominent. Rare earths are known as industrial MSG and the mother of new materials. They have rich and excellent optical, electrical, magnetic, superconducting, catalysis and other properties. They are widely used in cutting-edge scientific and technological fields such as new energy, national defense and military, and are non-renewable strategic resources.

Therefore, seeking rare earth pricing power has become the key to the national rare earth strategy.

Unfortunately, due to the interests of various domestic groups, China has never had the pricing power for rare earths. It was only after Fan's Investment Group entered the rare earth industry in a large scale and controlled the upstream and downstream chains that it greatly increased the price of rare earths, allowing China's rare earth industry to truly gain economic benefits, and making rare earths the key to China's future high-tech development.

Government officials in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region said that regions with rich resources all want to enter the downstream processing industry with greater profits, and are unwilling to just provide raw materials, and China is unwilling to be a world factory forever.

Reducing export quotas is an important means for China to seek the pricing power of rare earths. Starting from the year that Fan's Investment Group entered the rare earth industry, China gradually reduced its export quotas. Rare earth prices have also risen. With the decrease in output, prices have skyrocketed, less workload and less resources have been lost, but the profits obtained have increased exponentially, which makes the country more clear about who is really doing things for this country.

In late April, the Rare Earth Industry Association convened a symposium for major rare earth companies to discuss next year's rare earth export work arrangements, and the rare earth export quota may be further reduced. Japan's relevant departments went to China to negotiate with China last week to express concerns about the reduction of export quota and seek solutions.

Because of this problem, Fan Wubing and Shen Peiming, the son-in-law and father-in-law, had a short video call to discuss the policy to deal with it.

At present, the domestic system resources are basically divided into north-south. The domestic rare earth resources are mainly distributed in Inner Mongolia and five southern provinces. The northern rare earths are mainly praseodymium and neodymium, while the southern minerals are mainly medium yttrium and europium-rich minerals.

Fan Wubing mainly controls rare earth resources in the north. Although there are some rare earth development and processing enterprises in various southern provinces, they do not have an absolute advantage. Some small enterprises led by the enterprises controlled by Shen Peiming control about half of the rare earth resources in the five southern provinces.

Because of the relationship between Fan Wubing and Shen Peiming, the two sides have been communicating effectively. Fan's Investment Group mainly focuses on strategic reserves, while Shen Peiming and others control the export quota of rare earth resources, continuously reduce export volume, and significantly increase export prices. The excess rare earth resources are sold to Fan's Investment Group at internal prices as a national rare earth resource reserve.

At present, the central government is quite satisfied with the cooperation between the two groups in the north and the south. At the same time, it also hopes to strengthen the cooperation between the Northern Rare Earth Group with Fan's investment group as the core and the Southern Rare Earth Group with Shen Peiming Company as the core, so as to strengthen China's rare earth industry.

Affected by factors such as rising prices of rare earth products, the reduction of China's rare earth export quota and cracking down on rare earth product smuggling, some foreign companies have begun to look for rare earth sources outside China to ease supply pressure. American molybdenum mine companies have recently begun to prepare for the restoration of the development of the Mountain Pass rare earth mine, the largest rare earth mine in the United States, closed fourteen years ago, with an annual production capacity of more than 10,000 tons and is expected to be put into production within the next two or three years. At the same time, Australia, Canada, Japan, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, India and other countries are also implementing or preparing to develop rare earth mines.

After studying the policy and technical aspects, Fan Wubing and Shen Peiming believed that with the development of technology, the application fields of rare earths are becoming more and more extensive, and they have made great achievements in new energy, new technologies and new materials. Rare earths are transforming from industrial MSG to industrial grains. Internationally, electric vehicles, wind engines, lighting, computer hard disks, mobile communications, etc. all require a large number of rare earth applications. However, domestic rare earth deep processing technology has always lagged far behind developed countries such as Europe, America and Japan, and can only export primary products, and the huge profits in the deep processing of rare earths have been left abroad.

"This is extremely unfavorable to us, and we have to find a way to bring in technology." Fan Wubing told Shen Peiming. "Although Fan's Investment Group has made some progress in the deep processing of rare earths, there is still a big gap compared with the international advanced level."

"Then what do you mean?" Shen Peiming asked.

Fan Wubing said, "When I talked with the Prime Minister last time, he expressed great concern about this. In order to promote the development of domestic rare earth technology, the national plan will set up major rare earth special funds, and the Ministry of Science and Technology will allocate RMB 500 million to support the development and application of rare earths. The National Development and Reform Commission is also discussing the application and industrialization of rare earth functional materials as national strategies. Rare earth functional materials, luminescent materials, etc. may be written into the new five-year plan as major strategic projects. We must concentrate our efforts to break through a number of key technologies, promote the industrialization of independent intellectual property rights, and realize the sustainable development of the rare earth industry."

In short, China's rare earth export restrictions only target rare earth raw materials, but encourage the export of rare earth processing finished products. The implication is that policies encourage foreign rare earth deep processing enterprises to set up factories in China, thereby promoting the development of rare earth deep processing technology and seeking a voice in the industrial chain.

"At present, there are about 50 foreign-invested enterprises operating in Baotou Rare Earth High-tech Zone. South Korea Industrial Bank has also signed a cooperation agreement with Baotou High-tech Zone, which will guide Korean electronic product manufacturers and automobile manufacturers to Baotou to independently or jointly establish rare earth processing plants with China. The representative of Mitsui Products in China also said that Mitsui Products is guiding Japanese companies to invest in the rare earth processing industry in China." Fan Wubing said to Shen Peiming, "What I mean is that no matter how the domestic situation changes, the initiative must still be in our hands. We must not take out our interests and feed the dogs just because the local governments please foreign capital to create political achievements."

"Tell me some specific plans--" Shen Peiming asked.
Chapter completed!