China Hongqiao, the world’s largest producer of aluminium by output, used its latest annual report to warn that fierce competition in its home market would lead to “survival of the fittest”.

At the vanguard of China’s dominance of the global aluminium industry, Hongqiao appears to be thriving: in March the privately owned company set out plans to expand production capacity to 6m tonnes by the end of this year — 33 per cent more than the combined output of its US rivals in 2015.

These ambitious plans help explain why US and European aluminium producers fear their Chinese competitors could undermine a tentative recovery in the price of the lightweight metal this year. This is because western producers say excess production by Chinese rivals was a key factor behind falling prices between 2011 and last year.