Under the pressure of cost increase and pollutant discharge reduction and with limited exploitable bauxite and high dependence on overseas resources, "goingout" has become a feasible choice for China to develop bauxite resources.

    China ranks first in the world in terms of raw aluminum and aluminum products production and consumption.

    It is learned that China's alumina output reached 19.46 million tons in 2007, accounting for one-fourth of the world's total output; electrolytic aluminum output was 12.56 million tons, 32.8 percent of the world's total; and processed aluminum products, 11.76 million tons. As for consumption, China consumed 26.12 million tons of alumina in 2007, accounting for 35 percent of the total consumption; and 12.1 million tons of electrolytic alumina, 32 percent of the world's total.

    But since this year, China's aluminum consumption has been cooling down, and grew only 13.3 percent in the first half of 2008, lower than the expectation.

    From long-term point of view, China's aluminum industry will face the "bottleneck" of resources, and will rely on import of bauxite fora long period of time, said Ding Haiyan, Vice CEO of Chinalco.

    China accounts for less than 2 percent of the world's bauxite reserve, but the amount mined is only 10 percent of the world's total.

    But worldwide, bauxite is not a kind of scarce resources.

    It is expected that by 2010, China's aluminum products market maybe oversupplied, and the market competition will become fierce.