MINERALS IN THE WORLD ECONOMY—1991  3American exploration and investment
dollars to Latin America. This was encouraged by the movement toward more
progressive foreign investment laws in many Latin American countries. 
In the Western Hemisphere, 1991 mineral industry operations in Canada, the
United States, and the larger mineralproducing Latin American nations served
to significantly counterbalance lower levels of performance in Eastern Europe
and the former U.S.S.R. ~ Among the Latin American states, inflation and
international debt problems continued to mitigate against expansion of many
major mineral industry operations. The IraqKuwait crisis, which drove energy
prices upward, was a temporary boon, at least to the major oil producers
of Latin America, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador (listed in order
of output), but the same crisis worked to the disadvantage ofthose countries
like Brazil and Chile, which though well endowed with nonfuel mineral resources,
and in possession of a considerable processing capability, remained substantial
net importers of energy. 
In Europe, 1991 was a year in which the countries of the EC seemed to grow
closer, despite some complex problems, and as a more firmly linked group,
they represent a formidable economic force. However, there were some signs
that the degree of economic unity that was anticipated for 1992 by advocates
of a strong EC might fall short of attainment. It became increasingly apparent
that at least in the short term, German reunification brought more liabilities
than assets to both unified Germany and to the EC as a whole. This merger
without question provided certain advantages to those German states that
previously constituted the former German Democratic Republic over other former
CMEA member states, such as Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and
Romania. These advantages through linkage to the EC would at least to some
extent make the economic rationalization of its mineral industry somewhat
smoother. 
As the nations of the EC edged haltingly toward closer linkages, there 
were clearcut moves toward disintegration of other nations in Europe—moves
that could vastly complicate efforts at attaining economic viability within
a market economy world. Estonia and Latvia in 1991 joined Lithuania in separating
from the U.S.S.R. , thereby completing the breakaway efforts of the Baltic
States that had been under Soviet "protection" since the onset
of World War
II. Perhaps more significantly, as the year ended, a number of other former
Soviet Republics chose not to formally associate themselves with Russia in
the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia,
and Moldavia opted for a greater sense of independence, contributing further
to the breakup of the former monolithic national mineral industry of the
U.S.S.R. This left the CIS as a loose federation composed of the giant Russia
and the smaller former Republics that became the newly independent states
of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and
Uzbekistan. Although the mineral industry of the former U.S.S.R. was far
from having the sound central control that some ascribed to it, what evolved
from it for CIS and the seven other separated states has proven almost chaotic,
at least at the outset. 
The year 1991 marked the beginning of the disunion of the several Republics
that had comprised Yugoslavia since shortly after the end of World War I.
Macedonia and Slovenia disassociated themselves from Yugoslavia with a providentially
low level of civil strife before the end of 1991 , but Croatia's similar
1991 separation was marred by internal warfare between ethnic Serbians and
Croatians in the border areas of Croatia, and more complicated problems began
to develop in Bosnia-Herzegovina between Serbians, Croatians, and Moslems,
all groups indigenous to the state. The internecine warfare in former Yugoslavia,
coupled with sanctions aimed at curtailing this warfare, effectively crippled
the area's modest but diverse mineral industry, an industry that previously
ranked as one of the soundest 
in all of the basically centrally planned economy states. 
In Czechoslovakia, 1991 brought continued public debate by some for dissolving
the link between the Czech and Slovak Republics. The Czech Republic possessed
the greater proportion of technologically more sophisticated industries,
such as steel and heavy producer durables. The Slovak Republic, on the other
hand, was faced with a declining mining industry, with the aluminum sector
holding out the only hope for the future. 
A survey of global mining investment trends published by the Engineering
and Mining Journal (January 199 1) showed that 296 mining projects valued
at $55.2 billion were on the drawing boards in 1991. For the first time in
several years, new investment in base metal projects increased while gold
investment remained high. Distribution of investment by region was as follows:
South America and the Caribbean (25.0%), Asia (21 .9 %), North and Central
America (20. 8 %), Africa (15.2 %), Australia and Oceania (13.3 %), and Europe
(3.8%). In the steel sector, the Latin American Iron and Steel Federation
(ILAFA) recorded a significant upturn in the aggregate investment in steel
facilities by the countries that it covers, but similar data for the members
of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and for members of the OECD
updating that which was included in previous editions of Minerals in the
World Economy were not received in time for inclusion in table 
13. 
The unit prices paid for virtually all economically important metallic mineral
commodities in 1991 were significantly lower than those of 1990. Among the
nonferrous metals reviewed in the section of this study dealing with prices
and in table 3, only cobalt advanced in terms of its annual average. Pressure
on cobalt prices was attributed to supply problems in Zaire. The 1991 average
prices, in fact, were lower than those recorded for a number of years, and
it should be noted that the price declines were even more significant than
is immediately apparent from examining the current dollar prices