Aluminum exports from China, the world's largest producer of the metal, jumped to the highest in more than three years as smelters took advantage of rising global prices.

Sales of the metal and its products rose by 11 percent to 300,000 metric tons in June from a month earlier, customs figures showed on Tuesday. That's the highest since December 2004 and the fourth monthly advance, Bloomberg News reported.

"The amount looks big and the growth is led by aluminum alloys which don't incur export taxes," Wen Xianjun, director at the aluminum department of China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, said yesterday by phone from Beijing. Wen said he wasn't aware if the government was planning to change the tax rules, which applies to just primary aluminum, soon.

Aluminum, used in buildings and cars, has rallied 36 percent this year after power shortages in China and South Africa curbed output. The metal reached a record of US$3,380.15 a ton last week after China's producers pledged to cut output to help ease a nationwide power shortage.

"More exports are good for the domestic market and could be bearish for London prices," Li Jingyuan, an analyst at Haitong Futures Co, said in Shanghai. "Yet we believe rising production costs due to a power shortage is what investors are more concerned with than supply-side news."

Exports of tin and alloys from China, the world's largest producer and consumer, fell to a record low of 1 ton in June, according to customs data.

A 10-percent duty on tin exports "has worked well so far" in curbing the metal's overseas sales, Liu Minda, an analyst at Huatai Securities, said on Tuesday by phone from Nanjing.

(Shanghai Daily July 16, 2008)