Pamela Coke-Hamilton, Director, Division on International Trade and Commodities (UNCTAD)
Commodities are the basic products that underpin both our material progress and our everyday lives. – from the cereals at your table, the cotton of your shirt or the copper and lithium in your smartphone, to the oil and gas that propels your vehicle.
These products also sustain and propel the economies of the many countries that produce them. When more than 60% of the merchandise a country exports, in value terms, are these basic products, we call the country commodity-dependent.
But commodity-dependent is much more than an adjective. It is a state. A state that often correlates with vulnerability and poverty. A state so persistent that it does not only describe a country’s present, but most likely will determine its future.
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Image Courtesy:REUTERS/Hereward Holland
