Gina Rinehart's Roy Hill company and its contractors are to pool funds in a charity to provide training, education and cultural benefits in Western Australia's Pilbara.

Chief executive Barry Fitzgerald said so far the company had collectively raised more than $10 million for the Roy Hill Community Foundation.

"The idea behind what we're doing is together, I think, we can achieve much more," he said.

"Lots of different groups coming together, getting a larger pool of money, a larger pool of resources and then focusing it on high-value, high-benefit objectives."

The foundation would operate as a charity and funds would be spent on a range of initiatives.

"Education, training, employment, culture and the arts, business development and community development," Mr Fitzgerald said.

"So the business development is for traditional Indigenous groups and community development is for development of the communities in which we work.

"We believe by identifying four key strategic areas, we can pool our money together, pool our resources together, for a long-term commitment to deliver long-term results."

The fund would also help Aboriginal people get work ready and provide ongoing work place mentoring.

"There are a number of very good groups working with Indigenous communities who assist in training, we would see that maybe we could end up supporting those, we could end up being adjunct to those," Mr Fitzgerald said.

Charity addresses concerns over transparency

The benefits of such funds are often questioned by communities with little transparency over where the money is being spent.

But Mr Fitzgerald said that was why the company chose to operate the fund as a charity, which would see it comply under strict operating criteria.

"We have gone through a great deal of diligence in setting up as a foundation in terms of having governance structures complying with all the necessary regulatory requirements," he said.

"The second one is that in seeking assistance or input from other parties such as Samsung C and T and other contractors and suppliers, we are giving them a voice in setting the direction, we are giving them a role in what we do.

"We have obviously got the regulatory regime, which provides a certain set of regulatory obligations, clarity and transparency."

Mines Minister Bill Marmion backed the initiative.

"This agreement that Roy Hill have signed up to actually has a proper governance structure so they can keep a track of the benefits going to the community, going to the people it should be going to," he said.

"So that's a credit I think should be going to this particular foundation, getting the contractors involved in a very innovative model."

Iron ore demand still high from shareholders

Mr Fitzgerald also said he remained confident in demand for iron ore, despite Goldman Sachs predicting this week the commodity's price could drop below US$50 a tonne within the next three years.

"We have demand for iron ore from our shareholders, which are Japan, Korea and Taiwan and that's over 50 per cent," he said.

"We think that is because we have a good product, we have an ownership associated with those countries, we believe our product is of good quality and therefore attractive into the Chinese market.

"We've got 27 million tonnes or so to sell into that market (China).

"So in the total traded volumes of material into China, having a high-grade, low-phosphorus product is actually quite attractive, particularly when it is independently owned, when 30 per cent of our owners are in fact steel works, so we will be closely aligned with steelmakers.

"So a lot of positives for our customers."