GREEN LAMP: A staff member from a local power company installs LED energy-saving street lamps in Shaoxing, east China's Zhejiang Province, where such lamps have reduced electricity consumption by 53 percent since June (WANG XIAOCHUAN)

PV Exports Plummet

Exports of Chinese photovoltaic cells and components fell 31 percent year on year in the first half of 2013, due to overcapacity and trade disputes.

Export value stood at $6.5 billion in the first six months, according to the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products.

Exports to the EU, which contributed more than 40 percent to the total export value, tumbled 58.3 percent and those to the United States declined 48.9 percent in the first six months.

By contrast, exports to Asian and African countries rose 150.5 percent and 499.7 percent respectively.

Rare Earth Platform

The Baotou Rare Earth Products Exchange, China's first national trading platform of its kind, is expected to go into use on a trial basis in October, helping China gain more pricing power for the resources.

Trading systems are currently undergoing internal testing and are expected to become operational in October, said Gu Ming, general manager of the exchange, at the ongoing fifth Baotou China Rare Earth Industry Forum.

The exchange will handle spot trading for rare earth products and will not engage in any business related to futures at present, he said.

The exchange is located in Baotou, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, home to more than half of the world's light rare earth output.

Previously, China's rare earth market was largely opaque, as transactions were not made in public markets and always ran in small volumes. Only limited amounts of pricing and transaction data have been made available to the public.

The exchange will help improve the price-forming mechanism for global rare earth products and strengthen China's power on the international stage, said Ma Peng, former head of the Baotou Research Institute of Rare Earths.