South Korea's dependence on rare earth imported from China reduced in 2012 as the country diversified its import nations amid the relatively high prices in Chinese commodities, customs office data showed Thursday.

From January through November, the proportion of rare earth imported from China accounted for 54.4 percent of the total imports, down from 78.4 percent in the previous year, according to the Korea Customs Service (KCS).

The lower portion was attributable to the relatively high prices of rare earth imported from China that averaged 39.21 US dollars in 2012, equal to 101.3 percent of the average price of total imports. The ratio was higher than 91.3 percent in 2011.

Instead of the lower portion of Chinese commodities, the proportion of rare earth imported from Japan increased to 27.9 percent of the total this year from 7.8 percent last year.

The import diversification reduced the country's dependence on China for rare earth imports this year, the customs office said, noting that dependence on Japan increased instead of the decrease for China.