The Ministry of Land and Resources is encouraging overseas investors to establish joint ventures with their Chinese counterparts.

The ministry has also extended an invitation to foreign expertise, especially in the non-oil sector, according to Zhong Ziran, who is the vice-director of the Department of Planning.

Zhong made the announcement in Beijing yesterday at the launch of a new national programme focused on the sustainable development of the mineral industry.

Zhong said the country had greatly improved its investment climate since 1999 when the Chinese mining market started to open up to the outside world.

Foreign businesses, including joint ventures or cooperative companies, working bodies or companies with representative offices that have officially registered with China's departments of industrial and commercial administration, have been authorized to prospect for minerals in China since last year.

They have also been guaranteed mining rights once they strike a fresh resource.

The latest move follows a series of preferential policies aimed at foreign mining companies in China. These include cutting red tape and attracting foreign funds to the country's comparably backward yet mineral-rich west.

Zhong said little foreign investment had channeled into the Chinese mineral market because of the slumping prices of mineral products on the international market.

Many big multinational companies have been actively involved in prospecting for minerals in western China in preparation for an upturn in the market, said Zhong.

The National Programme of Mineral Resources highlights the protection and sustainable use of mineral resources.

The first of its kind, the programme is a strategic guideline for the future development of China's mineral industry.

It is based on the country's revised Law of Mineral Resources and endorsed by the State Council.

Violations can be punished. The programme says China should build an open mineral industry in the next 10 years, adaptable to the country's socialist market economy, enjoying a competitive edge in the international market and being friendly to the environment.

The mineral industry has become a major pillar of the Chinese economy.

The output value of China's mineral industry was 357.3 billion yuan (US$43.2 billion) in 1999, 4.4 percent of the country's gross national product (GNP).

The mineral-based processing industry comprised as much as 30 percent of the GNP.

Meanwhile, 15 percent of the country's total import and export volume for that year went to mineral or mineral-related products.

However, China suffers from a lack of some important minerals like oil and sylvite.

Sylvite is a source of potassium which is used in fertilizer products. So great is the need for potassium that deposits are considered very valuable.

(China Daily 06/13/2001)