There is a bright future for the rare earth industry to comply with the general trend.

At present, China's rare earth industry is facing both unprecedented development opportunities and unprecedented severe challenges. the international and domestic development environment requires the rare earth industry to achieve high-quality development. this coincides with the theme of the 13th rare Earth Forum, "High-level Innovation in the Industry and empowering High-quality Development of rare Earths".

Looking at the international environment, open resources show that in recent years, the United States has resumed local rare earth mining and implemented various measures to restructure the rare earth supply chain in order to get rid of its dependence on Chinese rare earths and promote the "de-Sinicization" of the system supply chain.

For the domestic environment, under the guidance of the double carbon goal, China's strategic emerging industries are developing rapidly, the demand for rare earths and rare earth functional materials is growing, and the fundamentals of the supply and demand balance of rare earth raw materials market are also changing.

From the demand side analysis of rare earth products, today, the world is promoting electric vehicles to replace fuel vehicles and vigorously develop renewable wind power generation, which will make the demand for NdFeB magnets continue to soar. According to industry evaluation and analysis, 85% of electric vehicles use magnets to drive electricity. The IEA expects the global electric vehicle market to grow at an annual rate of 36 per cent over the next decade if countries abide by the commitments of the Paris climate agreement.

In her speech at the opening ceremony of the forum, Ai Lihua, vice chairman of Inner Mongolia Autonomous region, pointed out that the party committee and government of the autonomous region firmly follow and guide General Secretary Xi Jinping's important instructions to Inner Mongolia, take scientific and technological innovation as the guide, rely on the advantages of rare earth resources, constantly improve the standard system, speed up the promotion of green manufacturing and intelligent manufacturing, and strive to raise the modernization level of the supply chain of the rare earth industry chain.

Zhang Rui, deputy secretary of the Baotou Municipal CPC Committee and mayor, explained how to promote the high-quality development of the rare earth industry during the 14th five-year Plan period. Baotou will give priority to the development of the two major industries of rare earth permanent magnets and hydrogen storage materials, focus on the two major industries of rare earth polishing and luminous materials, actively develop N "rare earth +" industries, and expand the scale of the rare earth industry. enhance the innovation ability, core competitiveness and sustainable development ability of the rare earth industry, promote the rare earth industry to develop in the direction of wide field, long chain and high quality, and constantly refine and strengthen the rare earth industry.

Innovation is the first driving force to lead development, and talent is the first resource of innovation. Duan Debing, member of the standing Committee of the Party Committee and Vice President of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, put forward suggestions on how to create a relaxed environment for scientific and technological innovation talents. He said: it is necessary to implement measures to deepen the reform of the scientific and technological system, improve the mechanism of trial and error tolerance and correction for researchers, and increase the independent decision-making power of researchers.

With regard to the changes in the rare earth industry in Baotou, Gan Yong, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chairman of the Forum, said that rare earths can form huge industrial clusters every year. This dream is now being realized in Baotou, and measures are being taken to make the city closer and closer to this dream.