China Releases Circular on Rare Earth Enterprises

Sept. 5 – China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) released the “Circular on Declaration of Announcement of Rare Earth Enterprises Access (guoxinyuanhan [2012] No.211, hereinafter referred to as ‘Circular’)” on August 24.

According to the Circular, the management department of the rare earth industry in relevant provinces and regions shall arrange the rare earth enterprises to fill in and submit the application materials in accordance with the provisions in the “Rare Earth Industry Access Conditions (Announcement [2012] No.33)” and the “Circular of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Printing and Distributing the Interim Administrative Measures for the Announcement of Rare Earth Enterprises Access (gongxinbuyuan [2012] No.377).”

Application materials

Enterprises applying for access shall provide the following materials:

1. Application report for access announcement (stamped with official seal)
2. Enterprise business license
3. Approval documents of construction project
4. Land use certificate of construction project
5. Reply documents on environmental evaluation, opinions on the environmental inspection upon project completion, sewage discharge permit, and monitor report on the pollutants discharged in the latest year
6. Supporting documents regarding the “three meantime” of security facilities, “three meantime” of occupational health, and record-filing on evaluation of safe production
7. Supporting documents to prove the enterprise has participated in social insurance, such as unemployment insurance, medical insurance and work injury insurance, and that such social insurance fees have been paid punctually and fully
8. Valid supporting documents showing a quality management system
9. Rare earth mining enterprises shall provide additional supporting documents, such as an exploitation license, safety production license, license on using explosives and dangerous chemical products
10. Other relevant supporting materials

Application Deadline

The first batch of application materials shall be submitted by September 30, 2012. For enterprises satisfying the application criteria afterwards, the management department of the rare earth industry at the provincial level may report such enterprises to the upper level. MIIT will then release the access announcement list by batch based on the evaluation results.

---