In 1964 an estimated 42 percent of the exports of the developing countries of the world consisted of petroleum and nonfuel minerals and metals. These commodities have accounted for about two-thirds of the rise in exports of the developing countries over the past decade, and they give promise of making the largest contribution to the expansion of exports by developing countries over the coming decade. Between 1953-55 and 1964 the value of developing-country exports of minerals and base metals grew at a rate of 5.2 percent per annum and the value of fuel exports (almost entirely petroleum) grew at a rate of 7.4 percent per annum.
On the other hand, developing-country exports of agricultural products over the same period grew at an average annual rate of only 2.1 percent per annum. According to projections made in 1967 by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, minerals, metals, and fuels by 1975 will constitute nearly 50 percent of total exports of developing countries as against 39 percent for 1960. Exports of agricultural products, on the other hand, will constitute less than 37 percent of total exports of developing countries in 1975 as against 52 percent for 1960. However, the rapid increase in the demand of industrial countries for imported minerals and fuels is of comparatively recent origin, and projections based on a continuation of this demand may prove to be wide of the mark.
The effect of export increases of these dimensions upon the foreign exchange earnings of the developing countries of the world would be spottily distributed. Petroleum and mineral exports tend to be heavily concentrated in relatively few of the eighty developing countries, and for some of the largest of these countries (e.g., India and Pakistan), such exports are either negligible or constitute only a small proportion of their total exports. (India's exports of iron ore and manganese totaled $105 million in 1965 but represented only 6 percent of India's total exports.)
Venezuela, the Middle Eastern countries, and a few North African countries account for the vast bulk of the petroleum exports of the developing countries. Most of the major mineral exports come from a few Latin American countries (Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela), the Central African countries, and Malaysia.
We may estimate roughly that 90 percent of the exports of petroleum and minerals are accounted for by countries representing less than one-fourth of the population of the developing world. Thus, whatever the present and future contribution of exports of these commodities to development, they are not likely to provide a solution to the problem of export growth for most developing countries or for those containing the bulk of the peoples of the developing areas.
Adapted from chapter 1 of Foreign Investment in the Petroleum and Mineral Industries: Case Studies of Investor—Host Country Relations, by Raymond F. Mikesell and others, an RFF book published by The Johns Hopkins University Press in 1971.
A version of this article appeared in print in the June 1972 issue of Resources magazine.
