Aluminum Corporation of China Limited, the industry's top company in the country, will increase its aluminum output by 23 percent to 8 million tons in 2005. For this year, the Hong Kong listed aluminum producer targets at an output of 6.5 million tons, a rise of 7.4 percent over the last year.

To achieve this goal, the company is seeking for acquisition possibilities home and cooperation abroad. It is in talks with Lanzhou Aluminum, the third largest aluminum manufacturer in China, for a take-over of the latter. Profits of Lanzhou Aluminum plunged 50 percent last year.

A new large scale aluminum plant, ABC Aluminum, will be built in Barcarena, Brazil by Aluminum Corporation of China and Brazil's Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, one of the largest diversified mining companies in the world. The initial phase, with an investment of 1 billion USD, is designed to have an annual capacity of 1.8 million tons when put into operation in 2007. The output is expected to reach 7.2 million tons annually through gradual extension projects following that.

According to Aluminum Corporation of China, this year aluminum production capacity in China will reach 10.68 million tons with 6.31 tons of capacity is in operation and about 1.1 million tons of new capacity completed but not in use.

Aluminum industry is under tight control of the Chinese government to curb the overheating investment in this sector. A planned capacity of 2.37 tons has been stopped or postponed. But the construction of another 3 million tons of capacity is completed or under way. Projects with 400,000 tons of capacity were shut down due to backward techniques and heavy pollution. In addition, 800,000 to 900,000 tons of capacity will be phased out in two year for the same reason.

The government has also imposed higher power bills on the aluminum industry twice and reduced tax rebate rates for metal exports.

By the end of 2003, China had been equipped with aluminum refining capacity of 7 million tons.

By People's Daily Online