China Sets 2030 Deadline to Complete National Assessment of Strategic Mineral Resources
Key Facts
China’s Ministry of Natural Resources has set a timeline through 2030 to complete a national assessment of mineral resources, in a round aimed at clarifying the resources’ true potential and expanding coverage. Under the schedule published by the Hubei Department of Natural Resources, the current phase runs from September to December 2026 and involves inventorying mines and mining areas, issuing technical requirements and providing training. The reassessment will then focus on producing mines in 2027, followed by mining areas in 2028. The national results are scheduled to be compiled in 2030. A ministry official said the assessment’s findings would be included in national mineral resource reserve statistics and serve as a reference for reserve management. The official clarified, however, that the assessment is not directly linked to taxes and fees, and that its focus is on “identifying the resources’ true potential.”
The new round covers all strategic minerals, as well as other important minerals such as silver, sulfur, kaolin, arsenic, selenium and strontium. The ministry said coverage would extend to all producing mines and large and medium-sized mining areas. It would also include all mineral areas classified as rare or scarce, according to the ministry’s description of the assessment’s scope. The schedule phases the assessment from cataloguing sites to reviewing producing mines and then mining areas, before the results are compiled nationally. The ministry’s statement, among the available facts, did not specify confirmed additional quantities for each mineral or how much could be extracted.
The plan comes amid a broader regulatory framework: China’s implementing regulation for its Mineral Resources Law took effect on June 15, 2026. The regulation provided for improvements to the mineral resource reserves system and emergency response, according to a Chinese government statement. Including the assessment’s findings in reserve statistics is consistent with the administrative role the ministry assigned to them. The official said, however, that the findings would not be directly linked to taxes and fees, placing the assessment within the work of cataloguing resources and managing reserves. The announced program spans several years, with national compilation scheduled for 2030.
Against a separate economic backdrop, China’s official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index stood at 49.3% in October 2026, down 0.8 percentage points from September, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. The reading was 50.1% in September before falling the following month. A level below 50 indicates a contraction in activity from the previous month, while a reading above that threshold indicates expansion, according to the bureau’s definition. The manufacturing production index registered 49.8%, while the new orders index was 49.4% in October. These indicators provide a picture of manufacturing activity during the month, without the ministry linking them to the mineral resource assessment program.
The index breakdown showed differences by company size: large companies registered 50.2% in October, compared with 48.4% for medium-sized companies and 47.5% for small companies, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. The reading for large companies thus exceeded the 50 threshold, while those for the other two groups were below it. In foreign trade, new export orders fell to 48.7 in October from 50.0 in September, according to the Associated Press. These readings place the manufacturing survey in the context of demand, output and company size, but do not explain the mineral assessment’s findings or measure its impact. The available facts included no data on market movements or a later date for publishing the assessment results beyond the timeline announced by the ministry.