•  Food, beverages and tobacco imports: Cumulative to July, imports of food, beverages and tobacco expanded by 37 percent over the year for the comparable period. Strong annual growth is forecast for the year, with a gradual pick up projected for the next 2 years. The increase in global food prices underpins a substantial part of the current strong growth.
The essence of their argument was that commodity prices had a tendency to decline over the long term. This, until recently, has been largely borne out by empirical evidence. BIS Review 73/2007  1  In the last 140 years there have been 18 commodity cycles, with slumps being more persistent than booms.