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Commodities and development report 2017: commodity markets, economic growth and developmen

  • 11/12/2017
  • FAO

Without a renewed commitment to policy change, commodity-dependent developing countries (CDDCs) are by 2030 set to lag behind countries with more diverse economies in their social and economic achievements, UNCTAD and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) said in a report. The Commodities and Development Report 2017 argues this is a likely scenario given that global food and non-food commodity prices - with the exception of oil - are expected to remain at their 2010 levels. They may even increase slightly in the years leading to 2030 - the target date for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed by the international community in 2015. However, the report notes that these global price patterns may diverge once broken down to the regional and national levels. The 2003-2011 commodity price boom drove up export revenues and, generally, economic growth rates for many CDDCs, but this trend has either slowed down or has been reversed since global commodity prices stabilized at a lower level, the report notes.