As policy makers gather in Tokyo this weekend for the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund, they will ask for the first time in a decade whether the rise in commodities prices that started in 2002 has finally come to an end.
The slowdown in Chinese economic growth, together with the eurozone sovereign debt crisis, high unemployment in the US and the arrival of fresh raw materials supplies after a decade of investment in new production has certainly started to damp prices for commodities from crude oil to iron ore.
The IMF index of commodities prices is down nearly 15 per cent from a nominal record high set in mid-2008. As the IMF says in its semi-annual World Economic Outlook, the “spillovers” from weaker economic growth “have lowered commodity prices and weighed on activity in many commodity exporters”.