Resources minister Matt Canavan has urged financial institutions to invest in the Australian mining sector as trade tensions cloud the outlook for several of the nation’s most important commodities.
Although it still expects the value of Australian commodity exports to hit a record high of $282 billion in fiscal 2020, the Department of Industry has shaved its June export value forecast by 1.1 per cent following falling prices for iron ore, coal and liquefied natural gas over the past four months.
The department said a ”further modest slowdown” in the global economy was likely, as a range of geopolitical issues such as Brexit add to the trade tensions caused by US President Donald Trump’s trade war against China.
The value of Australia’s four most lucrative export commodities – iron ore, coking coal, LNG and thermal coal – are tipped to be lower in fiscal 2021 than in the previous two years, and the department predicted the same declining trend for Australian exports of alumina, aluminium and zinc.
”The outlook for world industrial production has deteriorated, taking with it some of the buoyancy of resource and energy commodities in recent years,” said the department’s chief economist, David Turvey.
For the rest of this column: https://www.afr.com/companies/mining/gold-puts-a-silver-lining-on-trade-war-s-commodity-clouds-20190927-p52vff