The government has also decided to impose a 20% levy on raw ore exports and requires companies to start smelting all ore locally by 2014.

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At a briefing later, Goodyear said China was proving to be a strong market for iron ore, alumina and other raw materials.

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The steel mill he bought in 1989 was part of Ford's great River Rouge plant, where the father of mass-produced cars turned raw materials into vehicles on a single site -- transforming ore and rubber into finished cars (see box, p.122).

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China fears that if the takeover were successful, the combined firms would have a stranglehold on the world's supplies of iron ore and other raw materials.

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