01 Feb Commodity Update: Minerals and Energy
Posted at 10:02h
Moderate sub-trend global growth continues with a diversity of economic conditions (solid expansion in US, UK, India and China, weakness in Euro-zone, Japan, Latin America). This has been reflected in lower prices for a number of industrial commodities. Falling oil prices should boost global activity, although the impact varies between oil exporting and importing countries (for recent global trends, see Global & Australian Forecast. Despite being a beneficiary of lower oil prices, the flow of economic partials in China have been soft of late (although Lunar New Year distortions may be in play) suggesting the slowing trend over 2014 has continued (see China Economic Update).