Abstract:

Rare earth is a type of minerals, which is considered as a strategic mineral resource by many countries around the world and it demonstrates special and non-replaceable value in high technologies. Therefore, many countries consider rare earth elements as the gold in the 21th Century and even in the 22nd Century. The rare earth elements are said to be elements of the future by scientists. However, the rare earth market is very young compared to the market of other minerals. The rare earth business has grown strongly since the end of the 20th Century until the early 21st Century. The price of rare earth metals and/or oxides are variable. The variation of rare earth market during the last two decades (1990 - 2010) demonstrates that whether rare earth mining is effective or not it depends not only on the scale of deposits, mining conditions but also on the type or rare earth elements, market price and business timing.