The West Australian reported that Rio Tinto’s iron ore head, Mr Sam Walsh, has waded into the debate over local content, saying it is a myth that the mining industry did not support manufacturers.

In a blunt retort to steel makers who say they are missing out as multinational miners send fabrication offshore, Mr Walsh said local content at its Pilbara iron ore operations was running at as much as 86% for existing operations and 75% for its expansion projects.

He told an Australian Israel Chamber of Commerce lunch in Perth that Australia needed to focus on the areas where it would be competitive in the longer term.

He said “Manufacturing is going through an evolution and it needs to go through an evolution so we can concentrate on the areas where we're competitive. There's a bit of a myth that mining companies are not supporting Australian manufacturing. Well that's actually not true. If you look at our expansion projects, we're running with 75% local content. If you look at our ongoing operations, we're running with 86% local content. Yes a lot of that work involves labour but it also involves the sort of things that are hitting the newspapers.”

The issue of local content was brought to the fore last month after BlueScope Steel said it plans to cut 1000 jobs. Industry groups have since claimed that the local content for steel in Western Australia's major project was less than 10% and a survey of 44 WA steel businesses revealed that most of them believed the practice of mining companies sending work offshore was a serious problem. All of those surveyed said they wanted to see stronger state action to keep work from the booming resources sector in WA.

(Sourced from watoday.com.au)