Rare earth market update on March 27, 2025
The overall performance of the domestic rare earth market remains lackluster. As positive factors gradually diminish, the consumer market is slowly shifting from being seller-driven to buyer-driven. This is primarily reflected in the varying degrees of price declines for most products and the relatively low actual trading volumes. In the short term, industry players are closely monitoring whether Myanmar's rare earth mines can resume customs clearance and the issuance of the first batch of rare earth mining quotas for this year.
From the perspective of positive factors, first, the rapid development of high-tech manufacturing has created strong demand for rare earth functional materials, providing momentum for rare earth price increases. Second, the high production costs of rare earths continue to offer strong support for prices. On the downside, first, news of the impending resumption of rare earth imports from Myanmar has quickly spread in the market, sparking concerns among traders and cooling the rare earth market's enthusiasm. Second, compared to November last year, current rare earth prices remain elevated, suppressing further growth in market demand.
According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, from January to February 2025, the value-added of high-tech manufacturing above designated size grew by 9.1% year-on-year, an increase of 0.2 percentage points compared to the full year of the previous year, outpacing the growth of all industries above designated size by 3.2 percentage points. Among these, the electronics and communication equipment manufacturing sector and the computer and office equipment manufacturing sector saw double-digit year-on-year increases in value-added, with growth rates of 12.4% and 10.8%, respectively. The output of robot reducers and servers surged by 95.8% and 73.0%, respectively, while the production of service robots, industrial control computers and systems, and industrial robots grew by 35.7%, 29.9%, and 27.0%, respectively, driving a 9.1% increase in the value-added of digital product manufacturing above designated size. The production of new energy vehicles, lithium-ion batteries for automotive use, and solar cells rose by 47.7%, 37.5%, and 5.9%, respectively. High-speed growth was also observed in new material products such as carbon fiber and its composites and rare earth magnetic materials, with increases of 51.5% and 31.1%, respectively.
Price of rare earth products on March 27, 2025
Neodymium oxide picture
