Hongqiao said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange its net income for January-June was 8.14 billion yuan ($1.25 billion), up 187.5% from a year earlier and the biggest half-yearly profit for the company since it listed in 2011, Refinitiv Eikon data show.

Revenues were up 31.4% to 52.48 billion yuan as Hongqiao noted Shanghai aluminium prices were around one third higher than in the same period of 2020.

Prices rebounded strongly from the coronavirus outbreak on recovering demand in China last year. This week, they hit a 13-year high of 20,575 yuan a tonne as several Chinese regions impose power consumption restrictions on smelters to reduce carbon emissions, tightening aluminium supply.

Hongqiao, which only reports earnings on a half-yearly basis, said it produced 2.801 million tonnes of aluminium alloy products in the first six months of this year, up from 2.741 million tonnes a year earlier.

Its sales of aluminium raw material alumina were up 23.9% year-on-year in financial terms.

Sustained economic growth in China, the world's top aluminium market, in the second half of 2021 should see aluminium consumption continue to rise in the real estate, automotive and infrastructure sectors, driving prices for the metal higher, Hongqiao said.

In a separate filing, Hongqiao said it had appointed Christine Wong, who has been head of the company's investor relations department for 10 years, as an executive director.

Wong is also Hongqiao's head of corporate finance.

($1 = 6.4992 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Tom Daly; Editing by Susan Fenton)

By Tom Daly