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Primary Products: Prospects To 1985

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

G.F. Ray*
Affiliation:
National Institute of Economic and Social Research

Abstract

Prospects for supplies and prices are the subject of this article. No major supply shortages are foreseen for the next ten years. Dependence on OPEC oil will be reduced by production from the North Sea and elsewhere. Other commodity cartels are unlikely to have lasting success. Oil prices are forecast in two alternatives for 1985, representing the two extreme values of the possible wide range. Prices of food and industrial materials are projected on the basis of the lower oil price scenario and on assumptions concerning world economic growth, trade and inflation. They are expected to rise in the coming ten years faster than prices of manufactured goods.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 1976 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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References

Note (1) page 45 J. W. Forrester, World Dynamics, Wright-Allen Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1971; D. L. Meadows, D. H. Meadows, J. Randers and W. W. Behrens, The Limits to Growth, Earth Island, London, 1972.

Note (1) page 46 E. W. Pehrson, The mineral position of the United States and the outlook for the future, Mining and Metallurgy Journal, No. 26, 1945.

Note (2) page 46 Report on the ‘Limits to Growth’, World Bank, Washing ton, 1972.

Note (1) page 47 Technological forecasting is hazardous; it is nevertheless interesting to see how experts in various countries (among them leading scientists and technologists) when approached in Delphi-type inquiries, viewed the likely dates when major innovations in the energy area may be introduced on a commercial scale.

Note (2) page 47 For more details on this and other allied questions, see G. F. Ray, Raw materials, shortages and producer power, Long Range Planning, August 1975.

Note (1) page 48 For instance, the Dillon and Kennedy ‘rounds’.

Note (2) page 48 EEC, EFTA, LAFTA, the ‘common markets’ in the Caribbean, Australia/New Zealand, East Africa, etc.

Note (3) page 48 On the Soviet definition: material products only.

Note (1) page 49 For both GDP and industrial production, allowance has been made for the 1975 recession.

Note (1) page 50 Trade in primary commodities: conflict or co-operation, Brookings Institution, Washington, 1974.

Note (2) page 50 Within the EEC, food prices are likely to rise largely in line with the prices of manufactured goods since the rise of productivity, as well as wage costs, in agriculture will probably be comparable with that in manufacturing industries.