Rio Tinto’s cost-cutting measures will continue, but a surge in earnings has been proof they are effective.

The Anglo-Australian mining giant says despite write-downs and foreign exchange losses hurting its net profit, it has managed to post underlying earnings of $US10.22 billion for 2013, and increase of 10 per cent on the previous year.

The figure was a fair bit more than analysts expected, with a 15 per cent increase in the company’s full year dividend blowing away the forecasts as well.

Rio Tinto says the big numbers come from the huge amounts of iron ore, bauxite from this year. The company says it has set a record for highest output.

Cost-cutting measures brought in good amounts too, with $US2.3 billion saved across its operations.

The company cut its exploration budget in half for the last twelve months, spending just under a billion dollars on finding new opportunities.

These are all underlying figures though, with the company still hampered by multi-billion-dollar write downs on its assets.

Rio says it has experiences $US3.4 billion worth of asset value write-downs, combined with $US2.9 billion in non-cash foreign exchange losses. These factors reduced its statutory net profit to $US3.67 billion.

In the latest financial report, the mining giant said it wrote off $US114 million against a deferred Minerals Resource Rent Tax asset booked last year.