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A stable supply of resources and energy from foreign countries are indispensable in the steelmaking industries and Hi-tech industries of Japan. However, due to the unstable variations in resource prices caused by resource hunting, resource nationalism and the influence of major resource companies, the resource strategy in stockpiling and trade is becoming a national issue. It is extremely important from the viewpoint of resource strategy to develop the new technology for the recycling of rare elements and the substitution with general elements, which is not influenced by external factors. It is well known that some rare elements such as Manganese, Niobium and Vanadium are contained along with Phosphorus in some iron ores. As a resource strategy in Japan, the possibility of efficient recovery of these elements as by-products of steel in conventional iron- and steelmaking processes has to be discussed. It was clarified that rare elements can be easily transferred to molten pig iron in a blast furnace, and to steelmaking slag in a desiliconization stage, a hot metal pretreatment and an oxygen blowing furnace. Rare elements were concentrated in specific mineral phases during the cooling and solidification of the steelmaking slags. It was found that the separation of the mineral phases containing higher contents of rare elements from other mineral phases was a key-point in order to obtain a higher quality ore substitute.