Posted Tue Nov 27, 2007 7:23pm AEDT Updated Tue Nov 27, 2007...

Posted Tue Nov 27, 2007 7:23pm AEDT
Updated Tue Nov 27, 2007 7:34pm AEDT


Larry Yung and Barry Fitzgerald look at plans for a mutli billion dollar iron ore project in WA's Pilbara region. (ABC)
One of China's biggest steel mills has flagged bringing in hundreds of foreign workers to help build a multi-billion dollar iron ore project in Western Australia's Pilbara region.

Larry Yung's company Citic Pacific has ambitious plans to build a port and WA's largest desalination plant at Cape Preston by 2009.

The project would need thousands of workers.

Larry Yung is a Chinese billionaire who likes to keep a low profile, but his company and China's need for iron ore has brought him out of his comfort zone.

"Every year we are using 8 million tonnes of iron ore, now we just developed to be going to the 15 million tonnes, so iron ore is very important for us first," he said.

Mr Yung's Hong Kong-listed company, Citic Pacific, is spending $5 billion building a desalination plant, which will be bigger than the plant at Kwinana, south of Perth and a new deep water port at Cape Preston, south of Karratha.

The company will import Chinese technology and train 600 Australian workers to operate the magnetite iron ore mine, which it hopes will be completed by 2009.

But 2,500 workers are needed for the construction phase and the company will embark on a massive recruitment drive.

However company spokesman Barry Fitzgerald says foreign workers may be needed.

"They will be employed under Australian conditions and all the other same things, there'll be no discrimination, no treatment unfair to others," he said.

Citic will need to compete for workers with Woodside, which needs 2,500 workers for its Pluto project.

BHP and Rio are also scrambling for staff for their expansion projects.

John Langoulant from the Chamber of Commerce and Industry says the state's mining boom will be at risk unless more foreign work visas are issued.

"We would like to see a broader range of visas available to allow employers to being people into the state to ensure that these projects can get up and running as quickly as possible," he said.

The demand for labour in Western Australia is one of the key issues facing both the state and federal governments, but any move to increase the number of temporary work visas is almost certain to face criticism from the union movement.

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