China: Ministry of Industry and Information Technology "Encouraging Consolidation In Rare Earth Sector"

We have dozens of posts on rare earths. Here are a few of the more recent.*
From CapitalVue:

May 14 -- The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is setting minimum production scale requirements for rare earth metal smelting companies at 15 million tons per year, reports China Securities Journal, citing the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The minimum processing volume of light rare earth mines is required to be 300,000 tons per year. The production capacity of Ion-type rare earth mines is required to be at least 3,000 tons per year. Exploration of radioactive and polluting rare earth minerals like monazite has been prohibited. Production capacities of smelting and separation projects using mixed rare earth compounds, bastnaesite and lon-type rare earth minerals must reach minimum production requirements of 8,000 tons per year, 5,000 tons per year and 3,000 tons per year, respectively. The minimum capital ratio of fixed asset investment required for all of these types of projects is 40%.

Existing enterprises that do not meet these requirements must be merged, restructured or upgraded within two years, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Baotou Steel Rare-earth’s (600111) share price rose 5.69% to 38.80 yuan per share at 2:33 pm on May 14.

*From May 2009:
With a Name Like Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare-Earth Hi-Tech Co., it has to be good ( 600111:Shanghai)

In December 2007 I wrote:

How the heck did I miss Mongolia Energy Co. Ltd.?...

The question has haunted me to this day.
[you really need to get out more -ed]

MEco was the number two stock in the Bloomberg Worldwide Index that year, up 5911.17%.
I vowed that I "will study and learn, and one day my chance will come."
[ummm, wasn't that Lincoln?]

So when a reader emailed in response to this morning's "China tightens grip on rare earths":

"How do I participate?"

I had the [a -ed] answer.

IMBSREHTco's parent company has world’s largest rare earths deposits.
[the first letters of the acronym are IMBS, tee hee -ed]

Here's BusinessWeek's snapshot (all Prices in Yuan):
Snapshot of Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare-Earth Hi-Tech Co., Ltd. (600111)

OPEN ¥19.80		PREVIOUS CLOSE ¥19.19
DAY HIGH ¥19.90		DAY LOW ¥18.99
52 WEEK HIGH 05/15/08 - ¥24.94		52 WEEK LOW 11/7/08 - ¥5.66
MARKET CAP 15.4B		AVERAGE VOLUME 3 mo 20.8M
DILUTED EPS TTM ¥-0.05		SHARES OUTSTANDING 807.3M
EX-DATE 05/15/08		P/E TTM NM
DIVIDEND --		DIVIDEND YIELD 0.00%
K = Thousands M = Millions B = Billions

Here's the extent of my knowledge of Mongolia's fashion scene:

Nomadic chic hairdo
Reconstructed by M.Chimeddorj

From the Mongolia Today article:

Best hairdo, Hun style

Punks, rocks, skin heads... over last decades the world has seen all possible shapes and forms of human haircut. What was in fashion among steppe nomads some 2,000 years ago?

Prof. Bayar's research sheds light into the best hairdos of the past.

Be careful, do your own research. And email if you have editing/trading aspirations.
(requirements/renumeration can be found at "Help Wanted: Trader/Blogger")
[wha? -ed]