China’s rare earth is no longer rare anymore with record high exports, and prices are shockingly low. Export companies complain that it is only a little more expensive than that of pork.

According to China’s customs administration, the country’s rare earths exports in July alone surged 103.39% year-on-year to 3,659 tons, hitting the highest level since 2012.

However, with an average export price of US$11,191 per ton in July, China’s rare earths exports prices fell about 17.69% from the previous month and dropped about 20.68% from a year earlier.

China totally exported 17,540 tons of rare earth in the first seven months of the year, a 10.3% increase compared with the same period in 2014.

Meanwhile the rare earths exports value fell 7.4 % year over year to US$ 212.8 million in the first seven months of 2015.

“Chinese Rare earth market is a buyer’s market,” precious metal industry analyst Zhang Wei told Jiemian reporter. “The excess capacity causes unhealthy competition within the industry.”

Zhang said the pricing power is owned by a few dictating importers in the U.S., Japan, Europe, Korea, Australia and so forth.

Chinese Government has realized the problem.

In early 2014, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology published a plan to integrate all rare earth companies into six groups, and to merge mining and processing companies by the end of 2015.

The government approved the plan on May 14, 2015.

“This move will powerfully integrate the industry from the inside and the source,” Zhang said.

But he also doubted the change will complete by the end of this year, due to the serious status quo and the conflict with local governments.

Zhang suggested that a great long-term solution is to control rare earth output and focus on developing high-end applications, rather than merely exporting.