Commodity prices to stay depressed

15 July 1998

Commodity prices to stay depressed

COMMODITY prices look like remaining depressed well into next year, according to a mid-year analysis by US investment bank Merrill Lynch.

It says this will have serious implications for the economic growth of countries dependent on commodities.

Australia, Canada, South Africa and Russia “may have benefited from lower grain, meat and sugar prices,” it says. But this has been more than offset by the falling energy and metals prices.

It is particularly negative about the economic growth of Asian commodity-dependent countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.