Highlights

• Northern China Rare Earth forecasts 2025 net profit of $3.0-3.3 billion, up 117-135% year-over-year.
• Growth driven by cost cuts, inventory reduction, and increased production across rare earth metals, magnets, and functional materials.
• New green mining facilities and 50,000-ton alloy plants are now operational, with Phase II construction underway.
• Phase II construction signals accelerated vertical integration and commercialization of advanced rare earth technologies.
• The earnings surge and capacity expansion widen China's dominance in clean-tech supply chains.
• Potentially outpacing Western efforts to build independent rare earth separation and magnet manufacturing capacity.

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Northern China Rare Earth has announced (opens in a new tab) a major earnings surge for 2025, projecting net profit attributable to shareholders of RMB 21.76–23.56 billion (approximately $3.0–3.3 billion USD), representing a year-over-year increase of 116.7% to 134.6%. Net profit excluding non-recurring items is expected to rise even faster, up 117.5% to 137.4%, underscoring the company's portrayal of structurally improved profitability rather than one-off gains.

Pivotal  Plus Profits

Management frames 2025 as a pivotal year—the final year of China’s 14th Five-Year Plan—and positions the company as a flagship executor of national industrial policy. The earnings growth is attributed to tighter budget discipline, aggressive cost reductions, integrated production scheduling, and a sharper market-oriented sales strategy. Notably, the company reports that, for the first time in several years, annual sales of lanthanum and cerium exceeded production, materially reducing inventories—an important signal that excess light rare-earth supply is being absorbed.

Across core segments—separation, rare earth metals, functional materials, and permanent magnet motors—both output and sales volumes reportedly increased year over year. These materials are explicitly tied to new energy vehicles, energy efficiency, and decarbonization, reinforcing China’s strategic grip on clean-tech supply chains.

Perhaps most consequential for Western observers are the capacity expansions now coming online. Phase I of a next-generation “green” rare earth mining and smelting upgrade has fully entered operation, while Phase II is already under construction.

More Magnet Production

Meanwhile, downstream consolidation is accelerating: new alloy, magnet, and recycling projects—including a 50,000-ton magnetic alloy facility and a 3,000-ton magnet plant—have begun operations. Several previously “research-stage” technologies are now reported to be in scaled commercial production.

R&D Reform

The company also emphasizes reforms to its R&D system, highlighting new processes, equipment, and products aimed at moving China’s rare earth industry further up the value chain, away from commodity oxides and toward high-margin, application-specific materials.

Why this matters for the U.S. and Europe: this update signals not just higher profits, but tightening operational control, faster commercialization, and deeper vertical integration across China’s rare earth ecosystem. For Western policymakers and manufacturers still struggling to build independent magnet and separation capacity, the gap may be widening rather than closing.

The figures disclosed are preliminary and subject to revision upon release of the audited 2025 annual report.

Disclaimer: This news item originates from Chinese state-owned media affiliated with a state-owned enterprise. Financial and operational claims should be independently verified using audited filings, third-party market data, and non-state sources before being relied upon for investment or policy decisions.