Asia's insatiable appetite for commodities

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Eastern promise

As commodities demand moves to Asia, will banks follow?

December 13, 2010

The statistics are clear: commodity demand is moving east, and fast. For the moment, the bulk of trading and price-setting is done out of New York and London, but will banks, exchanges and physical trading houses move east as well? Joanne Hart reports

Growing need: Rapid industrialisation and urbanisation has made China a major importer of copper

Famine or feast?

December 10, 2010

For more than a decade, commodity markets have attracted increasing levels of investment, a trend that accelerated when returns from equity markets fell away in the financial crisis. Jim Banks asks what Asia's growing appetite means for commodities in the future: will investment lead to oversupply, or will demand from rapidly growing nations mean scarcity and price hikes?

Banks increase physical assets

December 8, 2010

The drive for a cap on position limits in the derivatives markets has led investment banks to increase their presence in the lucrative physical markets. Writer Geraldine Lambe

Food for thought

Who will satisfy commodity companies' hunger for finance?

December 8, 2010

Commodity companies are big and getting bigger, a fact that has not gone unnoticed within global capital markets. David Wigan assesses how the financial needs of these global behemoths are being met.

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