The world's largest tin smelting project went into operation at Mengzi Economic and Technological Development Zone in Honghe Prefecture of southwest China's Yunnan Province on Thursday, according to the provincial publicity department.

The 3-billion-yuan (456.1 million U.S. dollars) project will yield an annual output of 70,000 tons of refined tins, with its full-capacity output forecast at 20 percent of the world's total, the department said.

The plant's operator Yunnan Tin Company Group Limited (YTC), seen as the largest tin producer in the world, relocated its old smelting units from Gejiu City to the development zone for the purpose of better enhancing the ecological conservation and improving people's living environment in the locality.

More significantly, the company has applied more than 90 patents during the construction process, with home-grown equipments and apparatus accounting for 90 percent of the total. And nearly 40 percent of the equipments were produced locally in Yunnan Province.

In addition, the application of the spare-heat power generation technology has turned waste heat in smelting procedure into generation of 58 million kilowatts of power, supplying one third of electricity requirement at the plant.