Column: China’s commodity import trend driven by prices, not economy
China's imports of major commodities are often viewed through the prism of the performance of, and outlook for, the world's second-biggest economy.
While commodities like iron ore and coal are dipping, the commodity super cycle is still intact, says Rachael Bartels who manages the mining unit at Accenture.
“Urbanization is going to continue. [The] reality is China is not finished, India is not finished and Africa has not started. The long-term fundamentals are there,” said Bartels who was at MINExpo last month.
While miners are being buffeted by lower prices, Bartels says miners are still spending.
“The biggest issue is uncertainty around the pricing, and that is leading them to worry about their costs. We are seeing this in the operations base and capital expenditure base. This definitely hasn’t stopped miners from spending money: it is about spending money far smarter.
“The key is you need to manage your position with all the volatility going on and the winners are going to be the ones that manage across the cycle, not just when they are making lots of money because the commodity prices are up.
“When the prices come off the boil they are still in really good positions because they have good assets and they are leveraging all their skills and capabilities to extract the optimum value out of those assets.”
Regarding geopolitical risk and nationalization, Bartel says things have not changed much.
“Resource nationalism has been a problem for a long time, [but] I don’t see it being fundamentally different.
She notes that some countries have become decidedly less friendly, but she notes that there other countries that have gone the other way.
“The key for miners is really about how they become developers of choice. And that’s just not where you happen to have the asset.
“When you are going into new countries you can’t develop the mine and provide tax revenues, you have to be talking about how you are going to build the nation. That’s what the emerging markets are looking for.”
