China has approved the creation of one of the world’s largest rare-earths companies to aim to maintain its dominance in the global supply chain of the strategic metals as tensions deepen with the U.S., according to people familiar with the matter.
The new firm will be called China Rare Earth Group and will be based in resource-rich Jiangxi province in southern China as soon as this month, the people said. The new entity would be created by merging rare-earths assets from some state firms, including China Minmetals Corp. , Aluminum Corp. of China Ltd. and Ganzhou Rare Earth Group Co.