China’s aluminium industry continues relocating production to cleaner-energy regions such as Yunnan and Sichuan as part of its green transition and emissions-reduction efforts, influencing regional supply structures and aligning with global sustainability trends.

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China’s aluminium industry has embarked on a green long march, moving millions of tonnes of production from the northern coal country, its stronghold for seven decades, to pockets of the south and west rich in renewable energy.

The country’s output of electrolytic aluminium, the sector’s main product, reached 43.8mn tonnes in 2024, accounting for about 60 per cent of the world’s total production, according to local industry data.

However, following a spree of relocations in recent years, 13mn tonnes of that capacity — about 30 per cent — now comes from new smelters in areas with clean energy and low-development costs in Yunnan, Sichuan, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia.

The years-long multibillion-dollar relocation project is helping decarbonise one of the world’s dirtiest industries. Analysts believe the aluminium sector’s success will serve as a blueprint for Beijing to direct more aggressive production caps and capacity swapping in other industries.

“In China, there is always this trial system: you start from a city or province and, if it is successful, you ramp it up at a national level, and sectors are also the same,” said Isadora Wang, head of China at think-tank Transition Asia. “The aluminium sector has been the most successful in implementing this capacity swap policy, but if it is proven to be useful, to be effective, then different sectors with some similarities will use it.”

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