China's Baosteel says likely to bid for Rio Tinto: report

LONDON (AFP) — China's largest steel producer Baosteel Group is likely to launch a bid for global mining giant Rio Tinto, already the target of BHP Billiton, Chinese press reports said Tuesday.

Rio Tinto has rebuffed BHP Billiton's proposal to merge, which would combine the world's third-biggest and biggest miners respectively to create a 350-billion-dollar (240-billion-euro) behemoth, saying it did not reflect the group's real value.

"We are considering it and the chance of putting forward a bid is very high," the 21st Century Business Herald said, citing Xu Lejiang, chairman of Baosteel.

Xu told the newspaper that the bid plan was still under study and the company had not signed any agreement with Rio.

Meng Haibiao, a Baosteel spokesman, said he was unaware of the plan and declined to comment on the chairman's remarks when contacted by AFP.

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