China has for the second time secured rights to a North Korean mine amid inter-Korean efforts on joint mine development.

A source in Beijing says that the mine developer Linbao in Qing Huang Dao City, Hebei Province has won rights to develop a molybdenum mine in Pyongyang.

The company will invest more than two million dollars in the mine with five-hundred-four-thousand dollars as registered capital.

The source also said that the Guangshou group in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province from Thursday began joint operations with the North on another molybdenum mine with a total investment of some 60-point-five billion dollars.

The globally rare and strategically valuable metal molybdenum has extensive use in making planes, rockets and satellites. The compound is used in paint, ceramic, glass and in agriculture-related products.