The major aluminium maker, owned 22.8 per cent by Sumitomo Metal Industries Ltd, will close its plant in Sakata, Yamagata prefecture, northern Japan, in the autumn of 1999, it said.

Quitting the sector will result in a loss of one billion yen in the year to March 2000, it said.

Its aluminium forged and foundry products division posted a 300 million yen current loss on sales of 1.1 billion yen in the year to March 1998, it said.In November, Sumitomo Light Metal forecast a current loss of 2.10 billion yen in 1998/99 on sales of 200 billion yen.

It had an actual current loss of 793 million yen on sales of 212.48 billion yen a year earlier.