/REUTERS, December 7, 05/ - Swiss-based metals trader and producer Glencore International AG has boosted its share in the largest Kazakh zinc producer Kazzinc to 94 percent, the state property committee said on Wednesday.

The Central Asian state sold the remaining 22.65 percent of state-owned shares to Philippine-based PASAR Holding Inc for a total of 14.74 billion tenge ($110 million) at an auction held on Tuesday.

PASAR, the Philippines' only copper producer, is 69-percent owned by Glencore.

Another Glencore subsidiary already owns 71 percent in Kazzinc, the Swiss firm said on its site www.glencore.com.

The Kazakh government said that in bidding in the tender PASAR had undertaken to build a copper smelter with an annual capacity of 70,000 tonnes of refined copper in eastern Kazakhstan.

Kazzinc, which accounts for some 90 percent of all Kazakh refined zinc output, raised production of the metal to 279,480 tonnes last year from 276,790 in 2003, according to industry sources.

[2005-12-07]