ISLAMABAD: The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) says about two-thirds of all developing countries have become dependent on commodity exports between 2010 and 2015, which rings alarm bells as their revenue from commodity exports jump 25 per cent to $2.55 trillion.

The ‘State of Commodity Dependence 2016’ report, released by UNCTAD on Friday, warns that commodity dependence can negatively affect human development indicators like life expectancy, education, per capital income, and about two thirds of commodity-dependent developing countries recorded a low or medium human development index in 2014 and 2015.

UNCTAD defines a country as dependent on commodities when these account for more than 60pc of its total merchandise exports in value terms.

Many developing countries have been commodity-dependent for the past three decades, and it is worrying to see that the numbers are going up, says UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi.

Nearly 400 million people will need to be lifted out of poverty by 2030 if the Sustainable Development Goals are to be achieved in commodity-dependent developing countries.

The total commodity export dependence of Pakistan rose to $5,766 million in 2014-15 from $4,791m in 2009-2010. However, the share of commodity exports in the total merchandise exports remained at 25pc. As a share of gross domestic product, it was 2.2pc. Five leading destination markets for commodity exports were Southern Asia, China, United Arab Emirates (UAE), European Union (EU) and Saudi Arabia.

In terms of commodity import dependence, Pakistan’s total commodity imports rose to $21,387m in 2014-2015 from $17,185m in 2009-2010. Five leading trading partners for commodity imports were UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Indonesia and Southern Asia.

In 2014-15, ninety-one developing countries were considered to be commodity-dependent, increasing from 82 in 2000-2010. As a percentage of total developing countries in the report, almost 68pc of them were considered to be commodity dependent developing countries (CDDCs).

Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2017