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Tom Albanese, president and chief executive officer of mining giant Rio Tinto Group, said Monday the company was committed to repairing and strengthening commercial ties with China.

The world's second-largest iron ore supplier's ties with China could be traced back 50 years as it had provided aluminum to China in the 1960s, Albanese said at the China Development Forum 2010 in Beijing.

"I have been working very hard as a strong priority to build on the relationship with China. For me, it is above the most importance that Rio Tinto and China can work together to find opportunities for cooperation," he said during an interview with Xinhua after the forum.

"We have seen over the past five years China shares our revenues quite dramatically, which grew to 29 percent in 2009," he said. "China will increasingly become a bigger and bigger part of the world's economy and an increasingly important part of our markets."

Speaking about Rio Tinto's strategy to restore relationships with China, Albanese said "there are many steps along the path and the memorandum of understanding with Chinalco on the Simandou project is a very important step along the way."

Rio Tinto and the Chinese state-owned aluminum producer Chinalco signed a non-binding agreement last week to set up a joint venture to develop the Simandou iron ore mine in Guinea, West Africa, with an estimated annual output of 70 million tonnes, all of which would be sold to China.

According to the agreement, Chinalco will invest 1.35 billion U.S. dollars for 44.65 percent stake in the joint venture, and Rio Tinto will hold 50.35 percent, while the other 5 percent will go to a third financial company.

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