TOKYO (Commodity Online) : Isolated North Korea is desperate to earn some hard currency and look for rare earths in its borders with China.
According to North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency, the nation has discovered rare earth element deposits of about 20 million tons,
Analysts said the North Koreans are eager to dig into its rare earth elements in a fresh bid to obtain foreign currencies amid soaring prices of the minerals in the global market.
They added that China may hold the key to the fate of the country's attempt as it relies on Beijing to finance the development and production of rare earth elements.
As the competition among countries over rare earth elements, crucial to the manufacture of high-tech products, intensifies, Pyongyang is paying more attention to the global race to secure the minerals.
Two months before, the KCNA carried a report that North Korea is stepping up efforts to develop rare earth minerals.
The report said that mining and exploring are under way at several sites and that scientists are developing ways to use rare earth elements.
It also said that North Korea's leader Kim Jong Il is paying great attention to the rare earth project.
The reports come after there was little coverage of the subject since July 2009, when Kim reportedly visited a reprocessing plant in Hamhung, a city along the east coast, to stress a need to produce more rare earth elements.
South Korean watchers of the North cited soaring prices in the global market and the North's relatively rich reserves against the backdrop of Pyongyang's recent move.
Analysts said North Korea has yet to begin full exploration and purity and feasibility studies.
The North built the rare earth reprocessing plant in Hamhung around 1990 and its exports of rare metals to China stood at $16 million (about 1.27 billion yen) in 2009.
According to South Korea's National Statistical Office, the potential value for key mineral deposits in North Korea is put at 6,984 trillion won in the base year of 2008.
