Australia's iron ore company FMG making good business with China

PERTH, Australia, April 25 (Xinhua) -- The executive director of Australia's new force in iron ore industry, the Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. (FMG) has said the company is making good business in China and hoping to ship over 40 million tons of iron ore in 2010, mainly to the Chinese market.

In an exclusive interview with Xinhua recently, FMG Executive Director Russell Scrimshaw said that FMG has "nearly over 50 major steel mills in China as our customers, so we are very pleased to say that the customers like our iron ore and they like the way FMG does business. So we think it is a perfect marriage, which is FMG and China together."

"We are hoping that this year everything is working out well to ship over 40 million tons (of iron ore) this year." he said.

"It was China that really created the FMG because the demand in the market, the high growth of hematite ore was really the underpinning factor that enabled FMG to raise the money, to build the company back in 2006 when we had the approval to proceed," Scrimshaw said.

"So since that time, we have built the world's heaviest haul railway line, and its now been in operation for over 18 months along with our massive new port and in that short period of time we have just shipped over 50 million tons of iron ore all to China," he added.

"Our mine in the Pilbara region in the western Australia is the fastest growing iron ore mine in the world from the start-up, and we expect that to continue so there is a new competitive market and it is important that China to have choice of large scale providers into the steel industry," he told Xinhua.

He said the company also planned to expand business outside Chinese market. "We announced recently that we've just sent one shipment outside of China in December, 1 shipment only, but we expect more to be outside of China in the future. But China will always remain our major market."

He also noted that FMG bought a large amount of equipment from China, "so far we've bought over 600 million U.S. dollars worth of Chinese equipment for our project and that will grow the next time around."

Scrimshaw said he does not agree that China is of any difference from Australia or America or anywhere else when it comes to business. "I think business is business anywhere in the world. Customers in the world buy good product, good quality at the best value, and they also buy companies they would like to do business with, that's true anywhere in the world."

"So I don't think China is any different from Australia or America or anywhere else so we have our good relationships with our customers and we are looking forward to expand the relations in the years to come."