SHENYANG — China Zhongwang Holdings Ltd, the world's second-largest manufacturer of aluminum extrusion products by volume, has set a goal of increasing the volume of its exports to the United States by fivefold in 2012, indicating the company's ambition to strengthen its overseas business.

The company will sell up to 50,000 tons of aluminum products overseas this year, mainly to the US, said Chief Financial Officer Vincent Cheung when he spoke to reporters in the city of Liaoyang on Saturday. The percentage of overseas sales in the company's total sales is expected to grow from two percent in 2011 to more than 10 percent this year.

"We are now discussing with our US clients how to adjust our product types for the US market, which will help us to avoid anti-dumping and anti-subsidies duties on Chinese aluminum products," said Cheung.

In March 2010, the US Department of Commerce started anti-dumping and anti-subsidies investigations into Chinese aluminum products. The department finally decided to impose anti-dumping tariffs of 33.28 percent and anti-subsidies tariffs of 374.15 percent on several types of Chinese aluminum exports to the US in March 2011.

The move has hurt Chinese exports. In 2009, Zhongwang's sales revenue in the US market was 5.66 billion yuan ($897 million), accounting for 40.8 percent of the company's total revenue. The company's sales revenue dropped to 3.07 billion yuan in 2010, a year-on-year decline of 29.1 percent. The shortfall was, in part, a result of the probe.

However, the company moved quickly to adjust its marketing strategies and product types to maintain growth in 2011. According to its report, China Zhongwang had realized revenue of 6.63 billion yuan by the end of the third quarter last year, an increase of 52 percent over the same period in 2010.

In the coming years, the company will focus on the domestic market, which will be supplemented by overseas sales, and will increase its efforts to develop high-value-added products, said Lu Changqing, executive deputy-president.

He said flat-rolled aluminum products will be the newgrowth area for the company.

China Zhongwang will spend $3.8 billion to buy equipment to manufacture flat-rolled products. Commercial production is expected to start in 2014, with annual production capacity of 1.8 million tons. The company said the location of the production line has already been decided, but didn't disclose further details.