China may tighten environmental controls on rare earth mining, further raising the cost of metals vital to global high-tech industry, Xinhua news agency said yesterday.
The report will add to international concern over the supply of the minerals needed to produce items such as cellphones, missiles and solar energy panels. China now produces 97 percent of the world’s supply and has recently been -accused of blocking rare earth -exports to Japan.
Xinhua cited industry insiders as saying Chinese authorities are considering tightening pollution standards for rare earth miners, which will increase the cost of production and may raise the price of rare earth exports.
Yang Wanxi, a government adviser involved in the drafting of new regulations on rare earths, was cited as saying the standards were aimed at forcing producers to upgrade production techniques. Experts have suggested that the government consider eliminating small producers with annual production capacity of less than 8,000 tonnes of mixed rare earth products, Yang said.
Most of the industrialized world, including the US, Japan and Europe, have largely abandoned their production of rare earths in favor of cheaper Chinese exports, but there are now mounting calls for nations to work to diversify supply.
Japanese companies say that China has blocked exports of rare earths to them since September, amid a dispute between the two governments over islands in the East China Sea.
Chinese officials last week assured US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that China would remain a reliable supplier.
However, Clinton has made clear that countries like Australia and the US need to act to protect the supply.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure