eBusiness Weekly
Business Writer
Dependence on commodity exports has continued to worsen in developing countries since 2010 with nine more countries joining the list of raw material exporters by 2015, a latest UN report has said.
This brings the total of commodity export countries to 91 about two thirds of all the 135 developing countries, most of which are from Africa.
Although revenue from commodity exports continues to grow with US$2,55 trillion having been realised during the period under review, the reports states that commodity dependence can negatively affect human development .
Commodity dependence can negatively affect human development indicators like life expectancy, education, and per capita income, and about two thirds of commodity-dependent developing countries recorded a low or medium human development index in 2014-2015, according to the report, The State of Commodity Dependence 2016.
“In the context of dramatic volatility in commodity prices, developing countries will struggle to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals unless they break the chains of commodity dependence,” UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi said in Geneva recently ahead of the report’s release.
“Many developing countries have been commodity-dependent for the past three decades, and it is worrying to see that the numbers are going up,” Dr. Kituyi said.
The rise in commodity dependence was most noticeable in Africa, where seven new countries entered the category in 2014-2015, bringing the
total to 46. Over the same period, the number remained stable at 28 in Latin America and the Caribbean, while the region of Asia and Oceania saw its total increase by two to 17.
Agricultural products continue to dominate exports with 41 percent having been recorded, while 30 percent depended on fuel exports and 23 percent on minerals,
ores and metals.
Africa dominates the countries depending on agricultural commodity exports, while Asia and Oceania was home to almost half of those dependent on fuel exports.
According to UNCTAD a country dependent on commodities when its commodity exports account for more than 60 percent of its total merchandise exports in value terms.
When this share exceeds 80 percent, the country is considered “strongly commodity export dependent”, which was the case for seven out of 10 commodity-dependent developing countries in 2014-2015.
Launched in 2012, this is the third edition of The State of Commodity Dependence series.
