Chinese commodity demand has seen marked reduction from the overheated levels of 2007, said Tom Albanese as Rio released its third-quarter operating review. He said it was clear any return to demand growth would be delayed until next year.

China is a big customer for the Anglo-Australian miner, and the country's rapid economic growth has been underpinning high commodity prices.

Rio also said that the “challenging financial markets” meant it would miss its target of selling $10bn of non-core businesses by the end of the year. It had put the assets up for sale in order to help pay off the $44bn of debt incurred when it bought Alcan, the Canadian aluminium producer, last year. Mr Albanese insisted, however, that Rio's balance sheet was in good shape and that it could afford to wait for markets to recover before selling the businesses, such as Alcan's packaging division.