WORLD ECONOMY MINERALS YEARBOOK—1988  9watershed year for total
mineral
cornmodity trade; the downtrend in value that extended back to 1981 with
only a minuscule upturn in 1984, was substantially reversed. Despite this
reversal, the growth in value of other merchandise exports was so substantial
that the mmeral commodity share of total merchandise exports declined for
the seventh consecutive year. The tabulation also demonstrates that the decline
in value of total mineral commodity exports between 1980 and 1986 was chiefly
the result of declines in the fuels commodities. The aggregate estimated
value of nonfuel mineral commodities has increased regularly, although not
steadily, since 1984, and was only 2.8% below the 1980 to-date record high
in 1987. 
 The tabulation, however, does not show that in terms of constant dollars,
the decline in trade value is worse than shown in current dollars. Adjusted
for inflation, using the implicit price deflators for exports, the 1987 value
of mineral commodity exports was only $448,409 million in terms of 1980 dollars,
or only 63°lo of the record high of 
1980. 
 The role of individual major mineral commodity groups in world export trade

~ for 1982—87 is evident in table 2, as is the 
~ contribution of these groups to total 
~ merchandise export trade. This table is the basis for the estimates of
the total ~ value of all mineral commodity export ~ trade that was presented
in the tabulation. Table 3 demonstrates the relative importance of each of
these major groups of mineral commodities in the aggregate of export trade
in major mineral commodities, and reflects the constantly lower share of
the total accounted for by the mineral fuel commodities in each year between
1982 and 1987. Table 4 shows the change in each of the major mineral commodity
groups across the same time period in terms of percent change from the previous
year. 
 Information on the geographic pattern of trade by major geographic and political
country groups of the major mineral commodity groups shown in 
table 2 is available in the source publication for these data. 
CONSUMPTION 
Nonfuel Mineral Commodities 
 Available statistics on 1988 worldwide consumption of selected major nonfuel
minerals shown in table 5 mdicate increases over the 1987 levels. This was
the second consecutive year in which all listed nonfuel commodities registered
an upturn. Although the 1988 results incorporate a number of estimates for
countries that theoretically might change with the receipt of final, more
complete results, it is strongly believed that the pattern of rising consumption
of these major materials will be preserved when the more complete results
become available; 
~ however, the growth rates calculable 
~ from the data may vary somewhat. 
Consumption of the two ferrous 
~ metal raw materials listed advanced as functions of increased output of
pig iron and crude steel. In the case of iron ore, available figures suggested
a slight increase in world inventories as the growth rate for production
exceeded that for consumption. The estimated upturn in scrap consumption
was slightly less than the increase in steel output on a percentage basis,
but it is believed that there was little change in the ratio of iron ore
to scrap as iron and steel plant feed on a global basis. 
 Before summarizing the nonferrous metal use situation, it is essential to
comment on the nature of some of the data published. Examination of table
5 shows that separate statistics have been provided for market economy countries
and centrally planned economy countries. This had been done for two reasons.
First, the consumption trends from year to year for these two groups of countries
often differ, in that the trends in market economy countries are influenced
to a significant extent by variations in the economies of the 
countries included, whereas the trends in centrally planned economy countries
are generally the result of rigid economic planning. Second, however, and
perhaps more importantly, the consumption figures for the centrally planned
economy countries are universally apparent consumption figures—
that
is, they represent the sum of production (often estimated) and imports minus
exports, plus or minus variations in stocks (where such information is available).
As such, any change in the level of any of these component figures will result
in a change in the calculated apparent consumption, and for several commodities
in this group there are differences between production estimates by the Bureau
of Mines and those of Metallgesellschaft AG, the source of these consumption
figures. Hence, the consumption numbers provided here would differ if Bureau
production numbers were substituted in the formula. For instance, substitution
of the Bureau's estimates for refined copper output for 1988 would lower
the centrally planned economy countries consumption by 438,000 tons. Similar
but smaller reductions would result for lead and zinc, but results for alumi

~ num, cadmium, magnesium, nickel, 
~ and tin would be but little altered. 
Bearing the foregoing in mind, and thus considering the consumption data
for the centrally planned economy countries to be a measure more of year-to-year
trends rather than of precisc quantities of materials consumed, one can examine
consumption changes and the relationship to production changes. Of the eight
nonferrous metals reported, five registered greater percentage increases
in production than in consumption in 1988, suggesting the possibility of
stock growth. These were aluminum, copper, lead, nickel, and tin. Of these,
aluminum and lead had also demonstrated a greater increase in production
than in consumption in 1987 as well, whereas for copper, nickel, and tin,
the percentage growth in consumption had exceeded that for