Mark Moody-Stuart,chairman of Anglo American Plc [China Daily]

So it follows that Anglo American Plc, the British-based global mining giant, is developing new investment and sourcing plans for the fledgling but promising Chinese market, Moody-Stuart, the firm's chairman, reveals.

Anglo American's chairman made time for an interview in the company's Beijing office the day after delivering a speech at the China mining conference in Beijing.

"Our current investment in China US$300 million is relatively small at present stage, compared to our global investment figures. We are seriously studying the possibility of increasing our investments in China, mainly involving two categories of products coal and non-ferrous metals," Moody-Stuart says.

"In addition to more production investment to China, we will also raise the sourcing spending in China to better support our global operation."

Currently, Anglo American probably spends less than US$10 million buying industrial equipment and products from China.

Anglo American started investing in China with its entry into the market in the mid-1980s. Now the global resource explorer is hoping to invest several billion US dollars rolling out clean coal products in Shaanxi Province and another several hundred million to mine platinum and nickel if early stage exploration projects are shown to be viable.

"About US$300 million is not an astronomical figure for investment to China. We are looking forward to more investment in China," Moody-Stuart asserts, not concealing his preference for the Chinese market. The chairman believes the Chinese market will keep growing at a relatively high rate for a couple of years and then continue to develop steadily.

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