WTO: World Trade Report 2010 - World Trade Organization

world trade report 2010
B. Natural resources:
Definitions, trade patterns
and globalization
This section provides a broad overview of the
role that trade in natural resources plays in the
global economy. It begins with a discussion of
definitions and terminology, focusing on key
features that distinguish natural resources from
other types of traded goods. These features
include the exhaustibility of natural resources,
the uneven geographical distribution of resource
endowments, the presence of externalities in the
spillover effects of extraction and use of natural
resources, the dominance of the natural
resources sector in many national economies,
and the high degree of price volatility in this
class of goods. A variety of statistical data related
to natural resources are presented in order to
illustrate the magnitude and direction of global
trade flows.
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