Australian mineral export forecasts to 2000

Mineral exports are now about 35% of Australia's total export earnings. The authors consider the prospects to 2000 for the main export-earning commodities. Forecasts are arrived at using a variety of approaches, including regression analysis of time-series data, but the final assessment reflects specialists' personal judgments. It is argued that economic resources (reserves) already identified can, for most commodities, sustain forecast exports until the end of the century.     

开化县外向型创汇林业的战略模式

我国森林资源少,消耗量大,林业建设资金短缺。如何发展当前的林业生产、筹集林业建设资金,开化县的外向型创汇林业为我们走出了一条具有中国特色的外向型林业建设道路。本文就开化县发展外向型创汇林业的优点、出口创汇的主要对策、主要商品、发展潜力及其前景进行了论述,对目前正在探索适合我国国情的、解决我国林业“两危”的战略对策提供了现实的典型范例。     

The role of the Australian minerals industry in world mineral supplies

Australia is one of the world's main producers and exporters of both fuel and non-fuel minerals. Among the main commodities produced for export are bauxite/alumina, iron ore, and nickel—Australia is also an increasingly important source of supply of black coal, especially for Japan, and is a significant producer and exporter of a number of base metals. Resources are adequate to support a substantial expansion of both non-oil fuels and other minerals. The potential for growth, both in terms of specific commodities and in the overall role of Australia in the world mineral industry, will depend to a very large extent on the cost competitiveness of Australian mining and on continuing inflow of capital.     

Commodity currencies and currency commodities

There is a large literature on the influence of commodity prices on the currencies of countries with a large commodity-based export sector, such as Australia, New Zealand, and Canada (“commodity currencies”). There is also the idea that because of pricing power, the value of currencies of certain commodity-producing countries affects commodity prices, such as metals, energy, and agricultural-based products (“currency commodities”). This paper merges these two strands of the literature to analyze the simultaneous workings of commodity and currency markets. We implement the approach by using the Kalman filter to estimate jointly the determinants of the prices of these currencies and commodities. Included in the specification is an allowance for spillovers between the two asset types. The methodology is able to determine the extent that currencies are indeed driven by commodities, or that commodities are driven by currencies, over the period 1975–2005.     

Legal and regulatory aspects of financing commodity exporters and the provision of bank hedging line credit in developing countries

Exporters of raw materials and commodities in developing countries depend on the availability of hard currency pre-export financing and the adoption of pricing policies which meet the requirements of the international marketplace to produce and market their products in an efficient manner. The author has identified a number of structural obstacles which impede access both to international financing and to price risk management tools which could be overcome through relatively simple modifications in export regulations, currency controls, insurance regulations and in laws concerning title to goods.     

The integrated programme for commodities: An assessment of negotiations on minerals and metals

No agreement has yet emerged from the negotiations on mineral commodities held under the Integrated Programme for Commodities (IPC), and there is little, if any, prospect for one in the near future. This article examines the reasons for this standstill and the underlying assumptions on which the IPC is based. The following points are raised: the premise that problems of individual commodities are mutually exclusive and can be dealt with in a single framework of measures is shown to be doubtful; the principle of a commodity-by-commodity approach can no longer remain unchallenged; and structural flaws in the negotiating machinery are manifest. However, results of negotiations have not been entirely negative: the need for two-tier preparatory negotiations has been accepted and a case for a permanent consultative body, perhaps covering several commodities, has been made out. Lack of substantive reciprocity, hence political discord, remains the stumbling-block.     

IMPLICATIONS OF A DRAWDOWN OF THE SNAKE-COLUMBIA RWER ON BARGE TRANSPORTATION1

ABSTRACT: The listing of the Snake-Columbia River salmon under the Endangered species Cut will lead to a set of river management changes aimed at species recovery. One measure almost certain to be implemented is a periodic river drawdown. A drawdown will speed fish migration downriver but will also temporarily close the river to barge transportation. Grain shippers in the region rely on the barge carriage to move a significant share of annual production to export elevators on the Lower Columbia. A number of other bulk commodities utilize barges as well. This study outlines the aggregate and distributional economic implications of a suspension of barge transportation resulting from a river drawdown.     

An overview of global gold market and gold price forecasting

The global gold market has recently attracted a lot of attention and the price of gold is relatively higher than its historical trend. For mining companies to mitigate risk and uncertainty in gold price fluctuations, make hedging, future investment and evaluation decisions, depend on forecasting future price trends. The first section of this paper reviews the world gold market and the historical trend of gold prices from January 1968 to December 2008. This is followed by an investigation into the relationship between gold price and other key influencing variables, such as oil price and global inflation over the last 40 years. The second section applies a modified econometric version of the long-term trend reverting jump and dip diffusion model for forecasting natural-resource commodity prices. This method addresses the deficiencies of previous models, such as jumps and dips as parameters and unit root test for long-term trends. The model proposes that historical data of mineral commodities have three terms to demonstrate fluctuation of prices: a long-term trend reversion component, a diffusion component and a jump or dip component. The model calculates each term individually to estimate future prices of mineral commodities. The study validates the model and estimates the gold price for the next 10 years, based on monthly historical data of nominal gold price.     

External Debt and Prospects for Minerals-exporting Developing Countries

This article examines the extent to which selected non-fuel minerals-exporting developing countries can rely on their traditional source of hard-currency earnings to promote future economic growth and to facilitate payments for interest and amortization of accumulated debt. The countries (and minerals) under consideration are: Chile (copper), Bolivia (tin) and Jamaica (bauxite). Incorporated into the study are sets of alternative assumptions regarding global demand for these minerals to the end of the century, market shares, mineral prices, external debt levels and interest rates. More specifically, the study examines the likely ranges of future export revenues of these countries from these minerals in the years 1990 and 2000, and the role that these future export revenues may play in servicing external debt.     

TEMPORAL VARIATION IN THE NUTRIENT EXPORT OF RIVERS DRAINING INTO THE BAY OF QUINTE,ONTARIO, CANADA1

ABSTRACT: Annual exports of total phosphorus, soluble reactive phosphorus, and total nitrogen are presented for the period 1965–1974, for five rivers draining into the Bay of Quinte, Lake Ontario. The export values are typical for the physiography and land use though the results indicate that soluble reactive phosphorus exports for the four largest rivers have been declining. Also the variation in export of total phosphorus and total nitrogen is highly correlated with variation in annual runoff. This is noted as being a factor deserving more attention in future efforts to classify nutrient export values in relation to land use and geology.     

旅游商品发展对策思考

发展旅游商品是近年来中国旅游经济理论和实践中的热点问题之一，本文提出并论述了制定旅游商品发展规划，培育开发主体，在市场调研基础上科学开发，有效组织生产，市场建设与规范和宣传促销六大对策措施。     

The international natural rubber agreement 1979

The International Natural Rubber Agreement (INRA) 1979 is the first, and so far the only, commodity agreement to emerge from the negotiations under the Integrated Programme for Commodities (IPC). The agreement is examined in the context of the issues relating to international stock and as an indicator for future development. The author concludes that while the principle of joint responsibility for financing international stock has been for the first time accepted in INRA, this has been achieved at the cost of reducing the scope of the regulatory mechanism, and that the single-instrument pattern that the agreement has adopted may not be suitable or acceptable in other commodities.     

旅游商品开发浅析

旅游商品的开发对于促进旅游业的发展具有重要意义,应引起旅游部门的高度重视。本文对我国旅游商品开发的现状及存在的问题进行了分析,并提出了我国旅游商品开发的大体思路     

Development of a Commodity-by-industry Economic-Ecological Model of Water Demand in a Rural Economy

The main objective of this paper is to develop a commodity-by-industry economic-ecological model (CIEEM) based on data collected in a rural village in Nigeria and to assess its utility for measuring the implication of various economic activities on the demand for scarce water resources. Our primary concern is model construction and determination of the direct and total requirements of both economic commodities (inter-industry transactions) and ecological commodities (water, land and vegetation) used in the economy. Also considered is the discharge of ecological commodities (waste water and solid wastes) back to the environment. Results show that, despite sparse sectoral interdependence within the economic system, inputs and outputs of ecological commodities include significant indirect components that can only be captured in an input-output framework. The most intensive users of water based on the direct effects are animal husbandry, construction and irrigated agriculture; based on total effects they are catering/trading, construction and animal husbandry, in descending order.     

农村商品流通网络模型及其发展趋势

农村商品流通是影响农业发展和农民消费的直接因素，完善农村商品流通网络对开拓农村市场，增加农民收入，发展农村经济具有推动作用。首先论述了农村商品流通网络的内涵；其次提出了基于主导要素的3种农村商品流通网络模型，即交易市场主导型、企业组织主导型和流通技术主导型，并对网络主体及其关系等方面进行了分析；最后提出了农村商品流通网络的发展趋势及其相应对策。     

Oil spills on other commodities

This paper examines the effect of crude oil prices on the prices of 35 internationally traded primary commodities for the 1960–2005 period. It finds that the pass-through of crude oil price changes to the overall non-energy commodity index is 0.16. At a more disaggregated level, the fertilizer index had the highest pass-through (0.33), followed by agriculture (0.17), and metals (0.11). The prices of precious metals also exhibited a strong response to crude oil price. In terms of individual commodities, the estimates of the food group exhibited remarkable similarity while those of raw materials and metals gave a mixed picture. The implication is that if crude oil prices remain high for some time, as most analysts expect, then the recent commodity price boom is likely to last much longer than earlier booms, at least for food commodities. The other commodities, however, are likely to follow diverging paths. On the methodological side, the results show that price indices, while providing useful summary statistics, they need to be supplemented by individual commodity analysis.     

Using the cumulative availability curve to assess the threat of mineral depletion: The case of lithium

The cumulative availability curve shows the quantities of a mineral commodity that can be recovered under current conditions from existing resources at various prices. The future availability of a mineral commodity depends on the shape of its cumulative availability curve (determined by geologic considerations, such as the nature and incidence of the available mineral deposits), the speed at which society moves up the curve (determined by future demand and the extent to which this demand is satisfied by recycling), and shifts in the curve (determined by cost-reducing technological change and other factors). While the shape of the curve for any given mineral commodity may or may not be known, it is knowable since the geologic processes responsible for the curve's shape took place many years ago. In contrast, the factors governing how fast society moves up the curve and how the curve shifts over time are not only unknown but also unknowable.Using lithium as an example, this article shows that knowledge about the shape of the cumulative availability curve can by itself provide useful insights for some mineral commodities regarding the potential future threat of shortages due to depletion. Despite the inherent uncertainties surrounding the future growth in lithium demand as well as the uncertainties regarding the future cost-reducing effects of new production technologies, the shape of the lithium cumulative availability curve indicates that depletion is not likely to pose a serious problem over the rest of this century and well beyond.     

Is the convenience yield a good indicator of a commodity's supply risk?

A strong increase in the demand for some commodities over the last decade will have a major impact on their future supply situation. Of increasing importance, therefore, is an assessment of a commodity's criticality, and especially its supply risk, by appropriate indicators. The literature has proposed numerous indicators of the supply risk. Here, we use the convenience yield of commodity futures as a supply risk indicator to address some of the major shortcomings of existing indicators, especially regarding their predictive power. This paper aims to test the applicability of the convenience yield as an indicator of a commodity's future supply risk. Therefore, we calculate historical convenience yields for 3-, 15-, and 27-month futures contracts for five major industrial metals (aluminum, copper, lead, nickel, and zinc) during the period 1999 to 2011. We compare the convenience yields at the beginning of the contract period to known indicators at maturity to find that the convenience yield has generally predictive power for the static stock lifetime (i.e., inventory volume/turnover) and future spot prices. Furthermore, we find that, with some restrictions, the convenience yield is an applicable indicator of a commodity's supply risk.     

WATER QUALITY MODELING OF ALTERNATIVE AGRICULTURAL SCENARIOS IN THE U.S. CORN BELT1

ABSTRACT: Simulated water quality resulting from three alternative future land‐use scenarios for two agricultural watersheds in central Iowa was compared to water quality under current and historic land use/land cover to explore both the potential water quality impact of perpetuating current trends and potential benefits of major changes in agricultural practices in the U.S. Corn Belt. The Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was applied to evaluate the effect of management practices on surface water discharge and annual loads of sediment and nitrate in these watersheds. The agricultural practices comprising Scenario 1, which assumes perpetuation of current trends (conversion to conservation tillage, increase in farm size and land in production, use of currently‐employed Best Management Practices (BMPs)) result in simulated increased export of nitrate and decreased export of sediment relative to the present. However, simulations indicate that the substantial changes in agricultural practices envisioned in Scenarios 2 and 3 (conversion to conservation tillage, strip intercropping, rotational grazing, conservation set‐asides and greatly extended use of best management practices (BMPs) such as riparian buffers, engineered wetlands, grassed waterways, filter strips and field borders) could potentially reduce current loadings of sediment by 37 to 67 percent and nutrients by 54 to 75 percent. Results from the study indicate that major improvements in water quality in these agricultural watersheds could be achieved if such environmentally‐targeted agricultural practices were employed. Traditional approaches to water quality improvement through application of traditional BMPs will result in little or no change in nutrient export and minor decreases in sediment export from Corn Belt watersheds.     

Sustainable development in East Africa: impact evaluation of regional agricultural development projects in Burundi,Kenya, Rwanda,Tanzania, and Uganda

Investments in agricultural technologies, capacity building and policy harmonization are needed to support sustainable development across Africa. Regional development projects can facilitate the adoption of agricultural technologies and innovations across nation-state borders and generate benefits for shared prosperity. This paper uses panel data from 1,160 smallholder households including beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries from five countries in East Africa - Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda. From a pool of over 90 projects implemented over a span of 15 years, 23 regional projects are included in this study. The major economic benefits to smallholder participants are higher crop productivity and income, access to adaptable technologies, access to markets, higher livestock and milk production, gender equality, enhanced food security, resilience and capacity building for uptake and scaling up of future innovation platforms. For example, the adoption of low-cost tissue culture banana by the beneficiaries increased their incomes by 15% in Rwanda while the adoption of appropriate land and water management technologies increased the potato yields from 2.8 tons (USD 2,840/ha) to over 7.5 tons (USD 7,410/ha) in Kenya. The beneficiaries ensured value added to commodities like bananas (for export) and orange-fleshed sweet potatoes (a nutrition-sensitive intervention for enhancing domestic intake of vitamin A) in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. Additionally, milk production increased from 6 to 11 L per cow per day in Uganda and from 6 to 8 L per cow per day in Tanzania, with increases in sales generating USD 115 per cow per month above the non-beneficiaries. These results are supported by previous studies on technology adoption, investments in agriculture and well-being outcomes. Our findings with the higher farm income Difference-in-Differences (DiD) estimator for the female beneficiaries compared to male beneficiaries might have important implications for investing in regional development projects that will close the gender gap in agricultural productivity in Africa. Regional projects can also support post-conflict development efforts for food security and peace in fragile contexts such as in Burundi. Our findings might serve as an input to the African Union's Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme, localization of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals related to food security and agriculture in Africa and an input to monitoring, evaluation and learning.