Aluminum Corp of China (Chinalco), the country's largest aluminum company, said profits declined last year on lower product prices.

Chinalco reported 10.23 billion yuan ($1.44 billion) of net profits in 2007, down 13.65 percent year on year, according to the annual report the company issued on Tuesday.

The company attributed the slimmer profits to price cuts of major products. The per ton price of alumina was 2,912 yuan last year, compared with 3,618 yuan in 2006. The price of aluminum dropped 3.15 percent to 16,914 yuan per ton. .

However, the company's business income surged 17.51 percent to 76.18 billion yuan last year, largely driven by booming global demand.

The world's second-largest alumina producer after Alcoa Inc produced 10 million tons of alumina last year, up from 9.62 million tons in 2006 when the company accounted for 73 percent of China's total alumina output.

The company's output of aluminum surged 20.7 percent year-on-year.

China, the world's biggest producer and consumer of aluminum, produced 12.56 million tons of aluminum in 2007, up 34.33 percent over 2006. Meanwhile, consumption surged 43.48 percent to 12.44 million tons.