Aluminum Corp. of China (Chinalco) said its 2007 sales revenue rose 24.1 percent to 131.7 billion yuan (18.04 billion U.S. dollars) as it made progress in expanding its business to include copper and acquired large projects overseas.

The world's second-largest alumina producer after Alcoa Inc. was applying to list in the Fortune Global 500 and would probably enter the ranking system in the middle of the year, Chinalco deputy general manager Lu Youqing said.

Its annual profits had exceeded 20 billion yuan for two consecutive years and its assets reached 201.4 billion yuan, Lu said.

Chinalco produced 10 million tons of alumina last year, up from 9.62 million tons in 2006 when the company accounted for 73 percent of China's total alumina output.

The company's output of aluminum surged 20.7 percent year-on-year, copper cathode up 20.6 percent and titanium sponge up 65 percent.

Last year, Chinalco became the controlling shareholder of Yunnan Copper Co. in an effort to build itself into China's leading copper maker. It also acquired 12 million tons of copper equivalents from Canadian copper explorer Peru Copper Inc.

The company plans to invest 1.2 billion U.S. dollars in a joint venture in Saudi Arabia, which will have an annual output of one million tons of aluminum.

(Xinhua News Agency January 13, 2008)