Chinese aluminum output is likely to hit a record 24 million tons this year, a research director at the country's top producer of the metal said Wednesday, suggesting production may ramp up toward year-end.

China's growth in aluminum output means it has had little need for imports from global markets where stocks are sitting at record highs, with prices falling to a four-year low below $1,800 a ton in June.

Output in the world's top aluminum producing nation is still running below total capacity, seen at 32 million tons by the end of this year, said Zhonglin Yin, director of the alumina division in the Zhengzhou Research Institute of Chalco. The Aluminum Corp of China Ltd is typically referred to as Chalco.

The country's aluminum production grew by almost 9 percent to 16.2 million tons in the nine months to September, according to China's National Bureau of Statistics. It stood at 19.9 million tons for the whole of last year.

Of new capacity this year, 84 percent will be in western provinces of the country, Zhonglin said at an industry conference in Singapore. But he added that aluminum production growth is slowing from an average growth rate of 18 percent between 2002 and 2012.

For alumina, a mid-process material used to make aluminum, Zhonglin said production this year would hit around 43.5 million tons, against a backdrop of more than 60 million tons of capacity expected by year-end.

Because China has only identified enough supply of aluminum ore bauxite for the next 15-20 years, the central government has issued new policies to reinvigorate exploration in the country, to seek alternative resources and to use as much overseas bauxite as possible, Zhonglin noted. China produced 33.2 million tons of bauxite from January to September, up 13 percent year-on-year, according to the statistics bureau.

The government has been issuing measures aimed at reining in overcapacity in sectors such as aluminum and steel for about a decade, but plans have usually faltered due to resistance from local governments anxious to boost growth.