Two finalists from Western Australia have won at the recent 2005 Australian Export Awards held in Sydney.
Rio Tinto Iron Ore Pty Ltd received the Minerals Council of Australia Minerals and Energy award, while WAMMCO International took out the Austrade regional exporter of the year award.
Accepting the award on behalf of Rio Tinto Iron Ore, Warwick Smith, managing director expansion projects, paid tribute to 3,500 WA employees from the iron ore mining giant.
“This is a great honour for us,” he said. “The Rio Tinto board has approved more than $4 billion for our expansion plans in the last two years and I think there’s more to come, to generate more wealth for our shareholders and for this great country of Australia.”
Rio Tinto Iron Ore was recognised as a leading Australian exporter and is the world’s second largest supplier of iron ore.
Located in Katanning, WAMMCO International is a farmer-owned meat processing co-operative, specialising in the processing and export of chilled and frozen lamb products. It has its origins in the Western Australian Lamb Marketing Board.
WAMMCO chairman Dawson Bradford, who accepted the award, said the group had come a long way in its history under the new name since 1997.
“We had a shaky start, but we’ve certainly made up a lot of ground in recent years, to the stage where we’re a very sound cooperative and looking forward to the future,” he said. “We have big plans and it’s backed up by outstanding and loyal staff we have at WAMMCO.”
Both received awards at the WA Export Awards earlier in the year.
