Long-term trends and structural changes in China’s domestic metal exploration investment: 1950–2024

• A comprehensive dataset on China’s domestic metal exploration investment from 1950 to 2024 has been compiled and shared. • Despite overall growth, the share of China’s domestic metal exploration investment in the national GDP has declined sharply, reaching historically low levels. • Funding sources have shifted from central government dominance to a more balanced and complementary distribution between local governments and enterprises/institutions. • Non-ferrous and precious metals remain the primary targets (over 70%), while rare earth, rare, and dispersed metals are playing an increasingly important role in driving overall growth. Domestic metal exploration activities have intensified worldwide due to rising demand for metals and increasing uncertainties in international supply chains. Analysis of historical investments in domestic metal exploration is therefore crucial for both informing local incentive policies and understanding global exploration trends. However, such research remains scarce, particularly for China—the world’s largest metal consumer and importer. This study compiles the first comprehensive dataset on China’s domestic metal exploration investment spanning 1950–2024 and employs a four-dimensional analytical framework to systematically identify long-term trends and structural changes. Over the past seven decades, China’s absolute investment demonstrated an overall upward trend with notable volatility, reaching RMB 7.38 billion (USD 1.04 billion) in 2024 after a dramatic 273% surge in 2008 and a subsequent 79% decline from the 2012 peak to 2019. Conversely, relative investment scale declined substantially as a share of national GDP (from approximately 1.23‰ in 1981 to 0.03‰ in 2024) while exhibiting cyclical fluctuations relative to non-oil-and-gas geological and mineral exploration sectors. Funding sources underwent fundamental transformation from central government dominance (approximately 80% in 1999) to a diversified model where local governments and enterprises/institutions collectively contributed over 97% by 2024, revealing a dual-track mechanism of market-driven enterprise investment and counter-cyclical government support. Analysis by targeted metals reveals that non-ferrous and precious metals consistently accounted for over 70% of total investment, while rare earth/rare/dispersed (RRD) metals surged six-fold from below 2% pre-2016 to nearly 12% in 2024. Gold, copper, lead–zinc, and iron remained the primary exploration targets, with recent growth driven by lithium, cobalt, and RRD metals essential for energy transition and high-tech applications. Building on these findings, this study discusses three key insights: the paradoxical development of absolute growth amid relative decline, the structural transformation toward diversified funding with strategic reorientation toward critical minerals, and China’s heightened investment volatility compared to global trends alongside policy imperatives for stabilization mechanisms. These insights inform both domestic policymaking and global understanding of exploration investment dynamics in the world’s largest metal-consuming nation.