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China's State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) has halted the construction of six aluminum plants in China for violating the country's environmental impact assessment law, a SEPA official said here Thursday.

?@?@The six projects were put to construction without submitting environmental impact assessment (EIA) reports for approval, seriously violating environmental law, said Zhu Xiangxing, director of SEPA's Environmental Impact Assessment Department.

The projects include five alumina plants with annual production capacity between 300,000 to 400,000 tons in central and Henan and Shanxi provinces, and one electrolyzed aluminum plant in Shanxi.

Zhu said SEPA had ordered the six plants to submit EIA reports for approval within a required period of time, and that it would only approve those that "can make rational use of resources and install pollution control facilities."

The move falls in line with the country's macro-control measures aimed at halting repeated constructions in some sectors and reining in the overheating economy, Zhu said.

The output of electrolyzed aluminum in China has been surging in recent years. In 2001, its output stood at only 3.43 million tons, but the figure jumped to 6.70 million tons in 2004, far exceeding domestic demand.

Used as raw materials for producing electrolyzed aluminum, demand for alumina has also been sharply rising.