China "is the subject on everyone's mind," said David Humphreys, chief economist with Rio Tinto, the mining giant.

Inco and Falconbridge began their merger quest with an attempt to create a Canadian mining giant, but they were thwarted and ended up being bought.

Other Johannesburg mining houses formed the basis of other corporate mining giants which still exist.

FL was formed by two mining giants, Noranda Inc.

And in Indonesia, the government brought criminal charges of polluting against the Denver-based mining giant, charges the company has denied.

In particular, a certain degree of rivalry between workers at the two mining giants, who were members of rival labour unions, developed.

And Amax Inc., a mining giant that had prospered with soaring prices of metals and minerals, was about to become legendary as a bad market timer.

Madagascar is resource-rich and the British mining giant Rio Tinto has a major ilmenite project in the south of the island.

Despite booming prices for metals, most mining giants remain chastened by the slumps of the past decade, they said.

That group is the largest gold producer in the non-Communist world, and Gold Fields, the British mining giant, ranks second.