Malaysia's Smelter Asia has signed a deal with China Aluminium International Engineering Corp (Chalieco) to use its technology at a planned aluminum plant in Sarawak.

Privately-owned Smelter Asia, which is leading a group of Malaysian firms to build the smelter, expects to produce 600,000 metric tonnes of aluminium a year, it said in a statement.

Smelter Asia is a unit of GIIG Holdings, a company controlled by prominent Malaysian businessman Syed Mokhtar Albukhary and Mohamad Ali Alabbar of Dubai.

The statement added that Smelter Asia is expected to buy some 1,100 megawatts of electricity out of 2,400 megawatts electricity to be generated by Sarawak's Bakun Hydro electric project.