After the approval for Rio Tinto’s investment for the iron ore capacity expansion in West Australia state, Rio Tinto will exceed BHP Billiton Ltd. to become the Australia's biggest iron ore exporter.

The president of Rio Tinto, Paul Skinner, indicated that the iron ore market in this year is still good and this prospect is expected to continue to 2008 and the demand will also keep strong.

Rio Tinto is confident of expanding the capacity to meet the strong demand in the future.

The chief executive of Rio Tinto said that the iron ore production volume will exceed 220 million tons to reach 300 million tons in the beginning of 2009, but this capacity goal is still under the research.

Paul Skinner announced in the company annual conference that Rio Tinto has accelerated this investment and planed to increase the iron ore capacity to at least over 220 million tons in the beginning of 2009.