Chinese infrastructure spending has sucked in record imports of iron ore and on Tuesday Rio's industry peer BHP BHP.AX BHBP.L also surprised investors with fatter-than-expected returns. have earned a lot of money last year," said CEO Jakob Stausholm, who moved into the top job last month. "But we have also done a lot of deleveraging in the year and we are down to now having less than $1 billion of net debt. So it's difficult to argue that we should hold back on dividends," Stausholm told a media briefing. Underlying earnings rose to $12.45 billion from $10.37 billion a year earlier, beating analysts' estimates of $12.02 billion, Refinitiv IBES data showed.