Chalco sees rosy 2010 after rough year
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Xiong said that he is confident the company will improve its performance this year on a recovering economic environment.
"We estimate Chalco will be profitable this year given the still robust growth in the real estate and auto sectors," said Zhu Lida, a non-ferrous analyst at Northeast Securities in Shanghai.
Zhu is projecting the company's earnings per share will reach 0.015 yuan this year, compared with 2009's minus 0.34 yuan per share.
The top regulatory body has approved Chalco's plan to raise up to 10 billion yuan in a March share placement to develop alumina projects mainly in Chongqing and Zunyi, Guizhou province, that will generate 2.35 million tons of production capacity per year.
Analysts said that the company would directly reduce its financial costs through the private placement.
In addition, Xiong said that Chalco is also actively seeking bauxite exploration opportunities overseas, with the goal of securing the company's natural resource supply.
"We will also be exploring investment opportunities abroad to establish large-scale alumina factories," Xiong said.
Chalco's parent company Chinalco signed a $2.9 billion agreement this month with Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto to jointly develop an iron-ore project in the West African nation of Guinea after an earlier deal between the two - valued at $19.5 billion - fell through.
Chalco's A-shares rose 1.87 percent to close at 13.1 yuan on Monday.
The company's products are used in construction, electrical, packaging, transportation, non-durable consumer goods, petrochemical, and aerospace industries.
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