Vale SA (VALE3), the world’s largest iron-ore producer, plans to invest $21 billion in 2012, 60 percent of which will be in Brazil, Global Strategic Procurement director Paulo Couto said.

Africa will be “a leading part” of the company’s investment outside of Brazil, Couto said at the Investing in African Mining Indaba conference in Cape Town today.

Output from Simandou, the iron-ore deposit in Guinea where the company has invested $1.26 billion, will start in the first half of this year, he said.