China dominates the world’s rare earths production, accounting for more than 95 per cent of global supply – a situation that has often sparked complaints from foreign manufacturers who rely on Chinese rare earths.

But some companies are benefitting in a big way: China’s biggest producer of rare earths, the Shanghai-listed Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare Earth Hi-Tech Co, announced on Tuesday that its net profit in 2011 quadrupled from a year earlier, rising to Rmb3.5bn ($552m). The jump in profits, which exceeded Baotou’s earlier guidance, sent the share prices up 8.4 per cent during trading.

The main reason for the jump in profits was high rare earths prices. Last year, in the midst of China’s crackdown on illegal rare earths mines, prices for rare earths skyrocketed by as much as ten times their value from a year earlier, before starting to slowly come down again.