Executives from Montreal-based aluminum company Rio Tinto Alcan have expressed their satisfaction with the support it has received from the Paraguayan government to build a US$2.5bn aluminum smelter in the country, the Paraguayan presidential office said on its website.

“This is a long-term process and we are very pleased with the extremely professional and transparent way the government is handling this and its coordination with the company,” Rio Tinto’s director of business development in Latin America, Patrick Tobin, was quoted as saying.

According to Tobin, construction would start in 2011 and be completed by 2014. The project would generate 850 direct and 9,000 indirect jobs.

In December Rio Tinto Alcan signed a letter of intent with Paraguay’s state power company Ande confirming negotiations to obtain power for the proposed smelter.

Rio Tinto Alcan is a branch of multinational resource group Rio Tinto (LSE: RIO).

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