Developing world seen driving "super cycle" of metals demand

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2007

MANILA (AFP) — An "industrial revolution" in the developing world has created a "super cycle" of unprecedented global metals demand that could sustain the industry for up to 18 more years, an Australian industry expert said Tuesday.

The upside is huge because although developing economies now account for half the world economy and two-thirds of world economic growth, their per capita steel and copper use is only a fraction of those of the developed world, said Mitchell Hooke, chief executive of the Minerals Council of Australia.

"Half the world is going through an industrial revolution compared to the United States in the 1890s and Japan in the post-World War II period," Hooke told an Asia-Pacific mining conference in Manila.

"As incomes rise up goes the...