Gina Rinehart's company Roy Hill is funding a charity to provide training, education and cultural benefits in Western Australia's Pilbara region.

Roy Hill chief Barry Fitzgerald says the company and its contractors have 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 operates as a charity, spending funds on a range of initiatives.

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

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

The fund also aims to help Aboriginal people get qualification and ongoing workplace 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.

But as with many mining-backed social funds, the benefits have been questioned by communities, who say there is little transparency about where money will be spent.

Mr Fitzgerald said operating the company as a charity means it will have to adhere to strict 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.”

Mr Fitzgerald also spoke on concerns about future demand for iron ore.

“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.”