Rio Tinto expects its iron ore sales to China to rise to a new record this year due to the country's rising demand for steel, a top company executive said Wednesday.

China's demand for steel is expected to rise at a compound annual growth rate of 3% in the next decade, Alan Smith, president of Rio Tinto Iron Ore Asia, said at an international conference here.

There have been concerns among analysts and policy makers over a recent slowdown in the Chinese economy, but Mr. Smith said the country's annual steel demand will continue to expand and peak around 1 billion tons in 2030.

Rio Tinto's iron ore sales to China were 147 million tons in 2012, a record that Mr. Smith expects to be surpassed this year.

Analysts say that a global economic slowdown in general or China's in particular could drag down prices of industrial raw materials such as iron-ore.

However Mr. Smith said Rio Tinto is "well-positioned on the cost curve" to supply iron ore to China, notwithstanding a volatility in prices.

He didn't provide the company's average cost of producing iron ore.

Rio Tinto has an annual iron-ore production capacity of 237 million tons, which will increase to 290 million tons in the third quarter, Mr. Smith said.

The company has a "proven and probable" iron ore reserves of 2.9 billion tons on dry basis.

"We have maintained a reserve base at nearly 2.9 billion tons for the last seven years," Mr. Smith said.

"In addition to our ore reserves, we have "mineral resources" of 18.4 billion tons," he said.

In 2012, Rio Tinto added 1.8 billion tons of mineral resources due to drilling and exploration, he said.