The agenda for this chapter comprises four items. The first section defines primary commodities and classifies them into a variety of distinct groups. These distinctions are indispensable for some of the analyses performed in the following chapters. The second section attempts to determine the significance of commodities in the international economy, at both the aggregate and individual product level. The third section paints a broad picture of the current geography of traded commodity production and consumption. The import dependence of the major industrial regions on overseas commodity supply is explored and quantified, and the most important commodity-exporting countries are identified in the process. Section four, finally, assumes a historical perspective and considers briefly the forces that have led to the increasing dependence of Western Europe, the US and Japan and, more recently, China, on commodity imports in the course of the twentieth century.

Commodity groups and their characteristics

The subject matter of this book is the world of raw materials, alternatively referred to as primary commodities and, for short, commodities. A first important task is therefore to distinguish commodities from other goods. This distinction may sound straightforward and clear, but however one proceeds, substantial ambiguities remain. Some of these were briefly touched upon in the preceding chapter.

The national accounts statistics of individual countries divide the GDP in accordance with the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) of All Economic Activities, as designed by the United Nations Statistical Office.