Abstract

Rare earths are a type of minerals considered as strategic ones by many countries around the world. They are of special value, irreplaceable and play an extremely important role in high-tech industries. Therefore, many countries consider rare earth elements as the gold of The 21^th and even The 22^nd century. Scientists call rare earths the elements of the future. However, the rare earth market is very young compared to that of other minerals. It grew rapidly  at the end of The 20^th century and  in the first decade of The 21^st century. The price of rare earth metals and/or oxides extracted from the same mine are variable. The actual variation of rare earth market during the last two decades (1990 - 2010) demonstrates that whether rare earth mining is effective or not it depends not only on the size of deposits, mining conditions but also on the type of rare earth elements in the deposits, their market price and demand over time.