The International Coffee Organization (ICO) has raised its forecast for global coffee production in 2018/19 to 168.05 million 60-kg bags from its earlier estimate of 167.47 million. World consumption in coffee year 2018/19 is estimated at 164.99 million bags compared to 161.38 million bags in 2017/18. The inter-governmental body now sees a global surplus of […]
India’s oil imports rose 4.6 per cent in February 2019 from a year earlier to about 5 million barrels per day (bpd), according to tanker arrival data from shipping and industry sources. India’s February 2019 imports on the basis of tanker arrivals were at a record high although some cargoes were discharged in March, tanker […]
Coffee-producing South Indian states have been witnessing a series of extreme weather events in the last four years. Extreme rainfall causing heavy flood and large-scale landslides in August 2018 in coffee producing areas of Kerala and Karnataka led to a dip of around 20 per cent in the total coffee production. South Indian states like […]
UK-based Vedanta Resources may accelerate expansion of its African zinc operations to take advantage of prices that have reached their highest levels in a decade because of a shortfall following years of under-investment, its international zinc head said, according to a Reuters report. The rally in zinc prices is the highest since 2007 and has […]
Rising commodity prices may have revived enthusiasm for African resources, but it is unlikely to be the old mainstays of coal and iron ore, Bloomberg reported, as the mining industry is scheduled to meet in Cape Town this week. The electric-vehicle boom and shifting industrial demand have transformed formerly niche metals — from lithium and […]
Cactus pear – a natural resource too often taken for granted — should be considered as a valuable asset, especially for food and livestock feed in dryland areas, the FAO has said. During the recent intense drought in southern Madagascar, cactus proved a crucial supply of food, forage and water for local people and their animals, the […]
Repeated droughts around the world have shockingly large and often hidden consequences, destroying enough farm produce to feed 81 million people every day for a year, damaging forests, and threating to trap generations of children in poverty, according to a new report from the World Bank Group. Uncharted Waters: The New Economics of Water Scarcity […]
The average global temperature set in September 2017 was 0.78°C (1.40 degrees F) above the 20th-century average of 15.0°C (59.0 degrees F), according to scientists from U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This average temperature was the fourth highest for September in the 1880-2017 record. This marked the 41st consecutive September and the 393rd […]
Africa’s economic outlook improved in 2017 compared with last year and is expected to gain momentum in 2018 due to a wider global recovery, the African Development Bank (AfDB) said. The GDP growth of the African continent in 2017 is expected at 3.0% up from 2.2 in 2016 and projected to expand to 3.7% in […]
An increasing number of developing countries – specially in Africa – that are becoming commodity dependent saw their revenue from commodity exports jump 25% to US$ 2.55 trillion between 2010-2015, the UN trade agency said in a new report. Commodity dependence can negatively affect human development indicators like life expectancy, education, and per capita income, […]