(Yicai Global) Nov. 21 -- Zhuzhou Smelting Group Co. [SHA:600961] plans to invest CNY5.06 billion (USD762.8 million) in a new zinc smelting project with an annual output of 300,000 tonsin Hengyang City in China's central Hunan Province, the company said in a press briefing yesterday.

Construction of the project will take around two years.

The internal rate of return on the project investment is 10.45 percent with a payback period of about nine years, the company said.

The implementation of the project is in response to national policy on combining capacity and upgrading environmental standards across the industry.

Zhuzhou Smelter Group has been engaged in smelting copper, lead and zinc for 61 years, and aims to bring in advanced experience from home and abroad in terms of process and equipment to assist the project's developments.

China is the world's largest producer of zinc, reporting an output of 4.9 million tons in 2015, accounting for more than one-third total global production. Zhuzhou Smelter Group is one of the country's major zinc smelters, producing 550,000 tons of zinc annually at present.