Brazilian mining giant Companhia do Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD) became the largest supplier of iron ore to China in 2006, said the company's financial director during the presentation of the company's results Thursday in Sao Paulo.

Last year CVRD sold 77.8 million tons of iron ore to China, or 37.8 percent more than in 2005, which accounted for almost a quarter (23.2 percent) of the total bought by the Chinese in 2006.

The financial director, Fábio de Oliveira Barbosa said that the target for this year was to reach 100 million tons in sales to China.

China was the main destination for CVRD's iron ore last year having absorbed 28.5 percent of a total of 272 million tons.

The second-largest buyer of CVRD's iron ore was Brazil itself (17.1 percent), followed by Japan (10.5 percent).

Asked about a possible fall in Chinese demand, following attempts by the Chinese government to slow growth of the economy, Oliveira Barbosa said that the company had, "not seen any fall in sales."

He added that the Chinese economy was expected to post growth of around 10 percent until 2008, and would therefore need "until the end of the decade, additional volumes (of ore) that are quite significant, contributing to maintaining global demand under pressure."

CVRD's profit in 2006 was 13.4 billion reals (US$6.3 billion).