By Amy Lv and Ryan Woo
BEIJING (Reuters) -China’s overseas shipments of rare earth magnets halved in May from April, tumbling to their lowest levels in more than five years due to export curbs.
Beijing said this month that it would speed up its approval process, a concession made after the U.S. and China agreed to dial back trade tensions. In the meantime, however, industry sources say Chinese customs officials have become increasingly cautious about processing rare earth cargoes.
This is particularly so for rare earth magnets because there is only a single code to cover magnets despite there being a variety of chemistries, said the sources who were not authorised to speak to media and declined to be identified.
China, the world’s largest rare earth magnet producer accounting for over 90% of global supply, decided in early April to impose restrictions on exports of seven medium-to-heavy rare earth products and some magnets. That’s rocked supply chains crucial to auto, aerospace, semiconductor and military equipment sectors around the world.
Last month, China shipped out 1,238 metric tons of rare earth permanent magnets, down 52.9% from April and the lowest level for a single month since February 2020, data from the General Administration of Customs showed on Friday.
April’s shipments had also halved from March.
On a year-on-year basis, May shipments were down 74%.
Sources have also previously said that customs are holding up some shipments of lower-performance rare earth magnets used in appliances and consumer electronics because of confusion over how to apply Beijing’s export curbs.
China’s commerce ministry said on Thursday that “a certain number” of rare earth export licence applications had been approved but did not disclose details.
Chinese rare earth magnet producers JL MAG Rare-Earth and Innuovo Technology announced in recent weeks that they have secured a few export licenses for some clients.
Exports of rare earth magnets for January-May slipped 14.5% from the same period last year to 19,132 tons, the lowest for the period since 2021.
(Reporting by Amy Lv and Ryan Woo; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
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