Aluminum Giant Struggles When Shine Comes off Prices

(Beijing) – When Xiong Weiping became chairman of Aluminum Corp. of China (Chinalco) five years ago, the nation's biggest aluminum producer was slipping into the red due to the financial crisis and dropping prices.

Chinalco lost 9.6 billion yuan in 2012 and another 4.2 billion yuan in the first three quarters of last year. The centrally state-owned enterprise, which has 47.3 billion yuan in total assets, has racked up a debt-to-asset ratio of up to 85 percent.