Major aluminum enterprise leaders considered exploitation of bauxite abroad a feasible choice on the 13 World Aluminum Conference held in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality recently.

    China's aluminum industry is facing a resource bottleneck, for its bauxite reserve can serve only ten years or more. China's bauxite reserve takes less than two percent of the world's total, but the exploitation takes ten percent. In comparison, the world's exploitable bauxite mines can serve over 200 year.

    China produced 19.46 million tons of aluminum oxide, and 12.56 million tons of electrolytic aluminum and aluminum processing products in 2007. The consumption of aluminum oxide hit 26.12 million tons, taking the world's 35 percent, and the consumption of electrolytic aluminum reached 12.10 million tons, taking the world's32 percent.

    However, aluminum consumption seemed to lose its momentum in 2008, with the growth rate of only 13.3 percent in the first half year,lower than expected.

    Ding Haiyan, vice president of Aluminum Corporation of China Limited, attributed the lower growth to the gloomy world economy, the state macro control and the frequency natural disasters happened in China.

    Considering the present production capacity, China's aluminum market will probably face surplus supply and fierce competition by2010.