The publishing arm of the China Nonferrous Industry Association (CNIA) is called Antaike. They are technically a “grand-daughter” company of CNIA, with an intermediate company controlling all CNIA’s commercial activities. But their overwhelming allegiance, as with the CNIA, is to government policy.

Unlike industry associations in other countries, here in China they are an arm of government. The government has little ability to directly manage and control industry, but still needs a channel through which to deliver policy and seek execution of those policies and regulations. Although the primary aluminium industry is relatively small, with less than 100 companies owning 128 smelters; consider industries such as the steel industry in which there are thousands of players.

Within the industry itself, these industry associations are seen as good places to send people who can’t cut it at the “coal face”. Executives who have not been able to achieve corporate targets sometimes find themselves “promoted” out of the way, into an industry association. (That’s less true on the technical side, where it is more likely that a technical expert will retire to the industry association where he can still do some good.)

Because of this allegiance to Beijing’s view of the world, CNIA and Antaike sometimes get things wrong. CNIA for instance, does not include certain smelters in their monthly production figures for China. They simply refuse to recognise smelters that do not have full Beijing approval for their construction or operation. Weiqiao smelter is one example, with almost 1 million tonnes of production simply missing from CNIA’s figures. So how did CNIA fix this, when people started complaining? They stopped issuing detailed lists.

So it comes as no surprise when Antaike’s monthly report includes this gem:

“Dongxing Special Aluminum Alloy Co., Ltd. … on December 26 put its newly-built stage 1 primary aluminum project with a designed capacity of 450 ktpy into production. The company adopts 500 KA pre-baked technology for the project. It is the largest potline in the world’s aluminum industry.”

Antaike should know that Chalco already has a 500ka potline in existence, which has been running for almost 12 months now. It should also know that RTA is building a 600ka line in Quebec Canada, although to be fair, that line isn’t running yet.

It is a small example, but there are simply too many occurring too often. It is no wonder that Antaike has become a great place for others to poach good people. Recently, a major international aluminium company succeeded in taking one of Antaike’s better people. That follows people such as Wan Ling, widely regarded as one of the best aluminium analysts, who left Antaike for CRU.

Why am I picking on Antaike? Because too many analysts and consultants, especially outside China, rely on them for information about China’s aluminium industry. One should be able to rely on a government company as a bastion of reliability, but Antaike is a long way from being able to claim that.