Can You Read China? Top Mining CEOs Disagree on Biggest Customer
- Miners are `cosmonauts who completely forgot about gravity'
- Or they'll keep benefiting from increasing long-term demand
All BHP Businesses Profitable in Current Environment: CEO
What on earth is going on in China?
Two of the biggest mining companies feeding the country’s appetite for raw materials can’t even agree on whether there’s an answer to the question.
Andrew Mackenzie, head of BHP Billiton Ltd., is bullish on his ability to comprehend a country that consumes more commodities than any other -- and whose economic woes have shaken markets around the globe this week.
“We don’t find China impossible to read,” Mackenzie, chief executive officer of the world’s biggest mining company, said Tuesday. “We’ve been at this game for decades.”
His certainty conflicts with billionaire mining rival Ivan Glasenberg’s admission last week that he couldn’t read the world’s second-largest economy right now and neither could anyone else.
Investors dizzy from this week’s turmoil in global markets may sympathize.