As investors and economists worry about global spillover effects on products by a slowing Chinese market, one crucial resource is bubbling beneath the radar--stockpiles of rare-earth metals in neighbouring Democratic People's Republic Of Korea. The category of minerals called rare-earth is a misnomer. The chemical components can be found throughout the earth, and have tongue-twisting names like cerium and lanthanum. But rare earth minerals are vital to regular technology gadgets and growing inventions, such as smartphones, high-definition TVs, hybrid cars, missiles--even the extraction of gas referred to as fracking. Rare earth metals have had a low profile in comparison to other alloys and commodities like petroleum. But more recently, demand for cellular technology, smartphones--and minerals required to manufacture those goods--has been increasing. China, meanwhile, is a leading manufacturer and consumer of electronic goods. And Chinese leaders need to secure a stable reserve of rare earth elements--including stockpiles in North Korea, which mainly has been isolated for 60 years, and has been used along with its vast supplies. That North Korea even houses any strategic resource could be surprising. "One of the things they've been actually trying to do is centralize and control this process," Noland said in a interview with CNBC the other day. Better than basic dirt Electio alternative investment Chang Sung-Taek, an uncle of the North Korean ruler, had accumulated an unusual degree of company sway before he was executed in December. Jang "had great contacts in China, no doubt about this," said Noland, executive vice-president and director of studies in the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Dc. And since of North Korea's diplomatic isolation, Chinese are effectively monopsonistic purchasers of the minerals, which can be to say they get these on good terms," Noland stated. The new essential resource: Minerals Around 10 to 15 years ago, there were few inducements to pin down future rare earth reservations. Now states are jockeying for the source. Select minerals, for instance, have authorized for ever-smaller smartphones with more powerful processing power. Amid high demand, it's hard to pin down Democratic People's Republic Of Korea's reserves and creation. China accounts for just over 90-percent of the world's rare-earth production, but new areas are coming on-board, including in the USA, Canada, Kazakhstan, Malaya, Australia and Greenland. And Chinese generation might be closer to 40 to 50 per cent during the next 20 years as new players come up to speed, stated Kristopher Rawls, senior economist at IHS Pricing and Purchasing, a world-wide market forecaster. But while marketplace diversification might be welcome, China has a business eye on its potential that includes a populous state, starving for consumer electronics that need rare earth metals. Consider your smartphone, for example. China envisions pulling raw materials and then managing generation to the closing end product. "They desire that whole supply chain," Rawls said. The largest rare earth mine outside of China is possessed by Molycorp and positioned in Mountain Pass, California, east of La. Annual capacity is about 19,000 metric tons, or around 14 % of international capacity. North Korean rare earth elements raise questions about whether your smart phone was fabricated with minerals from a totalitarian program. Reports of human-rights breaches have already been in the public domain for years. Now, a United Nations report released this week provides the largest-profile, global effort to investigate those promises. http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-24528306 Paradoxically, the trade of rare-earth minerals as well as other free-enterprise enterprises are starting the regime to maybe the most precious commodity of all--unfiltered, outside advice. "The Chinese drive them up to the border. They off-load these specific things off the Chinese trucks, also it is up to the North Koreans to stop and peddle." Everything from pirated DVDs of South-Korean soap operas to cognac can be bought inside the North Korean capital's tolerated markets. Necessary to monitor so called battle minerals--similar to identifying diamonds from conflict zones--do exist. But Rawls said rare earth from Democratic People's Republic Of Korea likely is experiencing multiple levels of processing, therefore any hint amounts in end products probably are minimal. "It Is definitely possible," Rawls said. On a trip to North Korea a few years back, Noland requested locals what they discussed in the markets. He got a astonishingly international response: "The Middle-East." As Noland explains, "The market literally becomes a conduit for information due to the manner it's organized, needing people tothe nation."