Research On China’s Rare Earth Supply And Demand Forecasting

Rare Earth is China’s strategic protection resources. Rare earth has been widely applied in various sectors of national economy. There exist some problems in rare earth industry, such as illegal mining, excessive extraction, smelting and separation overcapacity and disordered export system. In the case of China’s restrictions on rare earth production and exports and rapid growth of rare earth consumption, domestic rare earth market supply and demand presents new features, grasping of China’s rare earth market production and consumption trends and taking good industry management and guidance will promote changing the mode of development of rare earth industry and protectection and rational utilization of rare earth resources.Paper firstly analyzes the China rare earth supply and demand status, and then summarizes economic forecasting methods which often used in mineral resources, investigates the applicability of rare earth production and consumption forecast and selects for China’s supply and demand forecasting. Paper uses Exponential Smoothing method, ARIMA model and BP neural network to forecast the total production and consumption of rare earth in China and calculates the predictive value of production and consumption of rare earth elements. Paper judges the domestic rare earth supply and demand trends based on the forecasting results, and brings out some related rare earth policy recommendations based on the market development trends. Specifically, this study’s results are as follows:(1) Exponential Smoothing method applies well to China’s rare earth supply and demand forecast. After summary of the prediction result of three types of forecasting methods of rare earth production and consumption, we know subject to a shorter time series of rare earth production and consumption data and much volatility, considering fitting extent of historical data and consistency extent with future expectation, Exponential Smoothing method adapts better than ARIMA model and BP neural network on China’s rare earth production and consumption forecast. Paper adopts results of Exponential Smoothing method as the final result.(2) Both domestic and international rare earth market will appear new supply and demand characteristics. Domestic rare earth production growth will slow down before2015, while domestic consumption of rare earth to maintain a rapid growth, China’s rare earth market will maintain the current oversupply situation before2015in general. But the light rare earth elements, Praseodymium, Neodymium, Europium, and heavy rare earth elements Terbium and Dysprosium will be in short supply. China’s rare earth production will decline in the proportion of the world’s total and rare earth consumption accounts for the proportion of the world’s total will rise.(3) China’s current production, reserves, applications and trade policies of rare earth could be further improved based on domestic supply and demand trends Paper indicates that situation of control on China’s rare earth production is still grim, and governments need to strengthen the supervision of rare earth market circulation and improve the industrial management system. Rare earth industry should grasp opportunities of the huge demand of rare earth new materials which the rapid development of strategic emerging industries brings about and greatly enhance the level of application of rare earth. New changes of the international market are emerging and domestic and foreign markets should be considered to development of export quotas. Different rare earth elements in China will present a different balance of supply and demand in the future, oversupply elements can be considered for the reserve, increasing research and application intensity and export, insufficient demand elements could be imported from abroad. Government should protect and make good use of the advantages of the heavy rare earth resources in international trade.