Jiangxi Copper, China's largest integrated copper producer, said net profit for 2005 shot up to 1.85 billion yuan (US$230 million), an increase of 61.9 percent year on year.

The firm's chairman said turnover and profit last year were the highest since the firm was founded.

Analysts attributed rising profits to surging copper prices.

Meanwhile, net profit in the first quarter of this year jumped 96.3 percent year-on-year to reach 914 million yuan (US$114.25 million), while it saw share prices soar 12.4 percent to hit a record high of HK$9.05 (US$1.16) yesterday.

Its share price has surged more than 130 percent so far this year.

"I hope our company can become one of the top three copper producers in the world in the next two to three years," said He Changming, chairman of Jiangxi Cooper.

The company is currently one of the world's top ten copper producers.

It saw its turnover surge by 25.5 percent last year on the previous year to 13.34 billion yuan (US$1.66 billion) on the back of robust global and domestic economies and rising copper prices.

The company produced 422,000 tons of copper cathode (including processed copper) in 2005. Its average selling price was 29,216 yuan (US$3,652) per ton, 23.8 percent up from 2004.

The firm plans to invest 10 billion yuan (US$1.25 billion) in 16 projects that should be finished within the next three years, it said.

"We will invest 2.5 billion yuan (US$300 million) to finish nine of the projects this year," said He.

"With the remaining seven projects, which are comparatively bigger than those to be finished in 2006, we hope to finish three in 2007 and four in 2008 respectively," He added.

To further boost its copper production capacity, Jiangxi Copper's capital expenditure will reach 3.5 billion yuan (US$430 million) in 2006.

"We expect our copper production capacity to reach 450,000 tons this year," said He. That will be a 7 percent increase on 2005.

"Cooper prices will remain high for a certain period of time," He predicted, perhaps an indication that Jiangxi Cooper is likely to continue its double digit growth in turnover and profit in 2006.

The mainland's copper consumption is around 3.61 million tons every year.

(China Daily April 21, 2006)