BEIJING, March 24 (Reuters) - China has raised the first batch of its 2023 rare earths quotas, with the mining output quota increased by 19% from last year to 120,000 tonnes, the country's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said on Friday.
The ministry also set the smelting and separation quota for rare earths at 115,000 tonnes, an increase of 18% from last year.
Producers are not allowed to exceed quotas because rare earths are state-controlled resources, the ministry said.
China is the world’s top producer of rare earths.
(Reporting by Qin Ningwei, Albee Zhang and Dominique Patton Editing by David Goodman)
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