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PrintNew BHP Billiton boss Andrew Mackenzie is confident China's new leadership is re-balancing the economy in such a way that demand for commodities will be sustained in the long term.
Mr Mackenzie on Thursday said BHP was positive enough about growth in its iron ore, coal, petroleum and copper pillars - "with the possibility of a fifth one, potash" - that the company could focus on a simple strategy of increasing productivity.
"On the whole, I think the (Chinese) economy under the guidance of the new leadership is being re-balanced (with), perhaps, just slightly lower levels of growth that I think will sustain demand for commodities long term," he told a Melbourne Mining Club event at Lord's cricket ground in London.
Mr Mackenzie, who travelled to the United Kingdom from China overnight, said Chinese Premier Li Keqiang "was extremely reassuring about the demand for resources" when the pair met.
The new chief executive recently outlined plans to cut BHP's capital spending by a fifth, to $US18 billion ($A18.98 billion), in 2013/14 from a peak of $US22 billion this financial year.
On Thursday, he said the company wanted to get that down to $US15 billion in two to three year's time.
"But that is not a 'spend up to' number.
"If we don't, because of economic circumstances or project economics ... get sufficient, compelling reasons to invest, then we may not even spend to that level."
Mr Mackenzie also appeared to have a dig at the federal government's mining tax in Australia.
"Higher prices (during the mining boom) have also affected, in my view, how governments have viewed us," he said.
"Some mis-judged the value of their resources and lost out by squeezing project economics."
The former scientist said re-balancing of supply and demand had led to more sustainable prices "yet governments and communities still want a larger share of the pie".
Mr Mackenzie used his Lord's speech to drive home the point that more balanced markets required BHP to "get much sharper on operating and capital productivity to expand margins and increase returns no matter where prices go".
For BHP, every one per cent improvement in productivity translated to a $US170 million saving, he said.
Mr Mackenzie, who took over from Marius Kloppers in May, presides over a resources giant that last year endured a 58 per cent fall in first-half profit and a $US3 billion writedown on US shale assets.
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