Aluminium faces tough future, warns Chalco

Aluminium Corp of China (Chalco), the nation's largest smelter of the lightweight industrial metal, warned of more tough times for the industry as it said its interim net loss narrowed, largely on the back of one-off gains and government subsidies.

"There was no alleviation for the oversupply of the company's principal products and the market is likely to turn more gloomy," Chalco said in its interim results statement, adding it would try to cut losses in the second half.

Net losses for the year's first-half was 596.5 million yuan (HK$750.32 million), compared to a loss of 3.25 billion yuan in the year-earlier period, based on international accounting standards, the firm said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange.

The result beat the average 2.27 billion yuan net loss estimated by two brokerage analysts polled by Bloomberg.

Chalco said its "other gains" amounted to 1.74 billion yuan in the first half, up from a loss of 178 million yuan a year earlier.

They mainly came from accounting gains from the stake dilution in Jiaozuo Wanfang, a smelting unit, as well as the acquisition of Ningxia Energy, a coal and electricity producer.