Fragile world economy worries BHP

MG Global senior trader The world's biggest resources company, BHP Billiton, remains concerned about the fragile state of the global economy but says economic growth in Asia, where it has key markets, remains robust.

BHP Billiton chairman Jac Nasser said while the global economic outlook had improved, the recovery "remains fragile".

"Despite a near-term slowing in China, we continue to believe that the fundamentals driving Asian growth are robust," Nasser said in the annual report released yesterday.

"It is clear to the board that the long-term outlook for BHP Billiton is strong," he said.

Nasser said his company was committed to being a strong corporate citizen of Saskatchewan and New Brunswick in Canada, where it has in play a hostile US$40 billion ($54.3 billion) takeover bid for Potash Corp of Saskatchewan.

BHP Billiton chief executive Marius Kloppers told Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper that a Chinese-led rival bid for Potash Corp would hurt government revenue in Canada.

Kloppers reportedly told the newspaper's editorial board that if a Chinese state-owned enterprise was allowed to swallow Potash it would seek to drive down the price of the commodity.

Potash is the world's largest producer of potash, a plant fertiliser, and China is among the world's largest consumers of the product. Chinese authorities were said to be deeply concerned about the possibility of the world's largest miner winning control of the world's largest potash producer.

MG Global senior trader Anthony Anderson said investors were warming to BHP's plans for Potash.

"There is more and more talk about it and they seemed to have picked a very sweet target there," Anderson told AAP.

BHP Billiton has hired advisers to three Canadian prime ministers to lobby for its bid.

Michael Coates, an adviser to Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the last three election campaigns, registered for BHP, according to the website of the country's lobbyist registry.

William Pristanski, an aide in the 1980s to former Conservative leader Brian Mulroney, and Bruce Hartley, former assistant to the Liberals' Jean Chretien, also registered on behalf of BHP.

- AAP, BLOOMBERG