Open further to the outside world and attract more foreign investment; amend the Catalog for the Guidance of Industries for Foreign Investment; restrain foreign investment on high-tech products less when appropriate if such products will not affect the overall national safety and are in bad demand.

Lose no time to explore overseas resources. This is very important in terms of some resources that are congenitally inadequate but in large demand, such as kalium mines and phosphorite mines; various preferential policies should be offered. Encourage companies to go overseas to invest, build mines and explore resources to offset domestic insufficiency.

Brief survey on China's mining industry

1. Ferrous metal mining and dressing industry
The ferrous metal mining and dressing industry is a large category in the national economy, which is further divided into medium and small subcategories. It mainly involves mining and dressing of iron ores, as well as the exploitation and washing of manganese and chromium ores.

Most of the iron ore resources are located in Anben District of Liaoning Province, Panxi District of western Sichuan Province and Jidong District of Hebei Province. Among the proved iron ore reserves, 97.5 percent are lean ores, with an average iron content of 32.7 percent. Most of the iron ore reserves have already been exploited and utilized.

Over the past decade, the output of domestic iron ores could not meet the demand of the expanding steel production. Therefore, import has been increasing every year. In 2000, the output of domestic crude iron ores totaled 240 million tons, while imported iron ores reached 69.97 million tons. In other words, pig iron produced by imported ore accounted for one-third of the national total.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, total assets of the ferrous metal mining and dressing industry was 31.944 billion yuan in 2000, an increase of 0.80 percent compared to 1999. At the same time, the average balance of liquid assets also increased 1.99 percent on a year-on-year basis to 10.916 billion yuan in 2000. The average balance of net fixed assets was 10.208 billion yuan, a 3.68-percent increase over the previous year. The total amount of employees in the industry was 2,306,000.

With regards to product sales, in 2000, the sales income was 14.460 billion yuan, a 11.2-percent increase on a year-on-year basis, among which cost of sales was 11.093 billion yuan, an increase of 11.05 percent over 1999. In terms of tax payments and the additional value of sales, it reached 406 million yuan in 2000, up 4.01 percent on a year-on-year basis.

In 2000, total profits of the ferrous metal mining and dressing industry was 566 million yuan, and the debt totaled 14.626 billion yuan -- 2.25 percent lower than 1999. At the same time, the 170-million-yuan loss was also 17.08 percent lower on a year-on-year basis. This figure suggests that the industry was starting to make profits.

2. Non-ferrous metal mining and dressing industry

The non-ferrous metal mining and dressing industry mainly involves the mining and dressing of non-ferrous metal mineral resources. The mineral inter growth mining and dressing industry is divided into subcategories according to the major content of the ores. Generally, non-ferrous metals with a gravity higher than 4.5 is called heavy non-ferrous metal.

Since the reform and opening up, China's non-ferrous metal industry has developed by leaps and bounds. The total output of 10 common non-ferrous metals has ranked second in the world successively for six years. Non-ferrous metal is in large demand in China's economy. In 2000, the total output of 10 common non-ferrous metals was 7.75 million tons, among which 1.37 million tons were copper; aluminum, 2.89 million tons; lead, 1.05 million tons; zinc, 1.95 million tons; copper materials, 1.55 million tons; and aluminum materials, 2.18 million tons.

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