RARE EARTH.

AMR Technologies Inc.; KARAYANNOPOULOS, Constantine; RARE earth metals; INDUSTRIES; FOREIGN investments; STRATEGIC alliances (Business); INTERNATIONAL business enterprises; ENTREPRENEURSHIP; SHAN Zhicai; LANTHANUM; EUROPIUM; YTTRIUM; CANADIANS; BUSINESS enterprises

CANADA; CHINA; TORONTO (Ont.); ONTARIO

The article focuses on Toronto-based AMR Technologies Inc., which does business in China. The company processes one of China's unique resources: a group of rare-earth elements including lanthanum, europium and yttrium. These elements, found in great abundance and in great concentrations in China's clay soils, are used in the electronics, lens coating and catalytic converter industries. AMR also processes zirconium and magnetic powders used in hard-disk drives and optical drives for CD-ROMs. AMR President Constantine Karayannopoulos says the decision to do business in Jiangyin through a joint venture with a local entrepreneur, Shan Zhicai, has been fruitful. If you want to be in the rare-earth industry, China is definitely the place to be, given that's where most of the world's supply comes from. So, from a business perspective, AMR made the smart decision to set up shop here more than a decade ago, especially when you consider that the company's main competition, Rhodia of France, is only just recently making inroads in developing processing capacity in China.