Oil prices plunged below $130 a barrel yesterday, extending a sharp three-day decline and fuelling a second day of big gains in stocks that lifted Wall Street out of bear market territory.
The continued fall in oil, which last week reached a record high of $147.27, combined with the rally in bank stocks to brighten what a few days ago looked like an increasingly bleak financial and economic outlook.
In the face of an economic meltdown, Zimbabwe has suspended import duty on basic commodities for 90 days, with effect from May 12. The cost of imported basic commodities has sky-rocketed since
Poor nations have been given a little more say in the International Monetary Fund (imf). On April 28, members of the imf approved a proposal to give developing countries more power in the
The inflationary process at the international level is pushed by factors that cannot be easily controlled.
THE chances are that people under the age of 30 in most countries of the world would never have experienced price rises of the extent and rapidity of the past year. Globally, the prices of many basic commodities have not risen faster than this for around three decades.
Record global food prices will be on the agenda of the Group of Eight heads of state summit in July for the first time in almost 30 years, amid mounting concerns about the social, political and economic impact of the food crisis. The International Monetary Fund on Monday gave its starkest warning about the impact of rising commodities, saying food and oil prices "risk becoming a destabilising force in the global economy'. Yasuo Fukuda, Japan's prime minister, said in a letter to his G8 colleagues that soaring food prices were posing "imminent and serious' global challenges.
High food prices are today a serious humanitarian concern. They are also a source of macroeconomic instability affecting budgets, trade balances and, of course, incomes almost everywhere in the world.
When all goes well, thunderheads tower above India's southwestern state of Kerala in early June, drenching the region's vital rice fields and ensuring a bountiful harvest. From there the summer monsoon plods northward to soak the baking plains and irrigate vital breadbasket regions that feed 1.1 billion people before arriving at the foot of the Himalayas in August.
UK's Brown Calls For G8 Action On Food Crisis US: April 11, 2008 WASHINGTON - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Wednesday called for a coordinated response led by the United Nations, World Bank and International Monetary Fund to address soaring food prices. In an April 8 letter, Brown asked Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, as chair of Group of Eight industrial nations, to request the international agencies develop a global strategy to address the problem of rising food costs.
Food price rise to worsen poverty situation: WB expert Khawaza Main Uddin Sharp rise in food grain prices in recent times will worsen poverty situation in poorer countries such as Bangladesh, making attainment of UN development goals by 2015 uncertain, says a World Bank expert.
