| Rare earth is an important strategic resource. Although our country has become the ―rare earth powers‖ with its unique advantages in resources, but it doesn’t become a ―rare power‖. Most of the high technology patents are in the hands of the rare powers, such as Japan, the United States. For a long time, the development of our country’s rare earth industry focused on industrial chain front-end(selecting, smelting and separation). In the front-end of the industrial chain, China has been the first big country of the production and export with its significant competitive advantages. But the competitive advantage is mainly achieved by the costs of resources consumption and environmental pollution. However, with the excessive consumption of resources, its competitive advancing has been gradually weakened and becomes not so obviously. The development in the back-end of the industrial chain(functional materials and terminal application) is seriously lagging behind, the technology and the patent are not only scanty, but there is a huge gap with the international advanced level. If we continue to remain the focus of industrial development in the front-end of the industrial chain, the advantages of rare earth resources will not exist any more, the title of rare earth powers will be lose for sure, the dream of becoming the rare power will not come true. Therefore, it is imperative to promote the upgrading of the rare earth industry in our country, and changes our focus from the front-end to the back-end.From the micro perspective, the practice subject of the industrial upgrading is the enterprise, and must implement in the micro enterprise level, whether the industrial upgrading can be achieved depends on the decisions of the micro enterprise. Under the market economic system, as the rational ―economic man‖, the fundamental purpose of the enterprises making any economic decisions lies in the pursuit of efficiency maximization and risk minimization. The upgrading changed from the front-end to the back-end in the rare earth enterprise not only needs a large amount of capital investment, but also will inevitably encounter the risk of big or small. Therefore, only when the upgrading can bring a higher efficiency and a lower risk, it will attract the enterprise, and the enterprise will carry out the transformation and upgrading. Therefore, the efficiency and the risk are the two major driving factors of promoting the transformation and upgrading of the rare earth enterprises, and changing the industrial chain from the front-end to the back-end.This paper is starting from the level of rare earth enterprises, according to the perspective of industrial chain and the type of rare earth main business enterprise, divide the rare earth enterprise into two types, the front-end and the back-end enterprise business, representing the overall situation of the front-end and the back-end, to drive the two factors(efficiency and risk) of rare earth industrial upgrading ad the starting point, comparing the efficiency and the risk of the front-end and the back-end of rare earth industrial chain from 2007 to 2013, by using the data envelopment analysis(DEA) and the dynamic factor analysis(DFA) method. Studies show that, during the investigation of rare earth industrial chain, the efficiency in the front-end is higher than the back-end, while the risk is risk is lower. In the front-end of the rare earth industrial chain, the efficiency and the risk are more focused on the ―high efficiency and low risk‖ area. The lower efficiency and high risk in the back-end of the rare earth industrial chain are lack of attraction. The paper concluded that the efficiency and the risk level of the front-end and the back-end restrict the industrial upgrading of the rare earth industrial chain. On this basis, the paper gives some related countermeasures and suggestions to drive the rare earth industrial upgrading around improving the efficiency and reducing the risk in the back-end of the rare earth industrial chain. |
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