A delegation of Chinese investors has visited a rare earths site at Nolan's bore north of Alice Springs for the first time over the weekend.

The company, China Exploration Development has invested $24 million in Arafura Resources to explore and mine the site by 2011.

Mr Shao is the General Director for China Exploration Development and he says they're hoping the site will be profitable.

"We came to Australia for several reasons. The most important reason is to make our cost official with Arafura.

"Both China and Australia, they are very important countries in the Pacific area and also economy of Australia and the economy of China have complimentary aspects."

This was the first time they'd visited the Nolan's bore site north of Alice Springs and Mr Shao says they're very confident in the resource.

"We have a very, very deep and good impression of this project and we have our own geologist with us and we did a lot of research and a lot of discussion with experts from Arafura."

Mr Shao says it's this type of resource is a shift from the company's traditional interests.

"Our company is an exploration company, so we did exploration work and mineral development work in iron, copper, gold, zinc and these non ferrous metals.

"Now we have a big interest in the rare earths and phosphate, so that's why we come to the Nolan's project."