Aluminum smelters shutter capacity

Aluminum smelters in China pledged on Friday to halt new mills and keep idled capacity closed, in a statement that stopped short of the specific targets set by top producer China Hongqiao Group Co and other metals producers to cut capacity or output.

The smelters, representing three-quarters of the country's capacity, will increase "production flexibility", the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association said in a statement posted on its website. The move follows a gathering on Thursday to discuss measures to counter the lowest aluminum price in six years. The statement did not name the producers.

"If that is all we have got, it is as vague as you could possibly be, which puts a big question mark over it," Daniel Hynes, senior commodities strategist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd, said by phone from Sydney. "Even with figures in them, the announcements so far have been a bit dubious, but when there is nothing to hang your hat on it is even more so."