A food price crisis may be the next stumbling block for emerging economies, even as their bonds and stock markets rally in relief at an easing of the eurozone's debt crisis.
Wheat prices have jumped by more than 50 percent since June and are likely to rise further due to expectations of tighter supplies, triggering concerns about a repeat of the food crisis between 2007 and 2008 that forced interest rates higher in many economies and led to emergency controls in others.
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) cut its 2010 global wheat forecast by about 4 percent last week and said world wheat supplies may shrink next year if severe drought continues in Russia, Europe's leading wheat producer.
Russia imposed a temporary export ban last Thursday in response to a record-breaking heatwave and the extent of the damage to crops and its economy is only beginning to become clear.
Spiraling wheat prices could translate into higher inflation and possibly higher interest rates in emerging market economies, which tend to hold a large proportion of their consumer price baskets in food.
The FAO said healthy world stock levels should prevent a repeat of the crisis of 2007 but past squeezes on food have led some central banks to hike rates aggressively in a bid to head off a second round of price rises in their economies.
Analysts and investors are already preparing for tighter monetary policy in emerging economies, even as they look to the possibility of further quantitative easing in the United States.
"It is a big deal for emerging markets, though maybe not as big a deal as it was in the past few years, as food prices make up 20 to 50 percent of emerging CPI baskets," said Charles Robertson, EEMEA chief economist at ING.
"Food prices never move in the U.S. as a result of changes in global harvests, because so much of the price of food is taken up by packaging and suppliers. In the EU, food prices move a little bit but in emerging markets, food price rises can add a few percentage points to the inflation rate."
~宏浩翻譯引用~
資料來源：http://www.chinapost.com.tw/guidepost/topics/default.asp?id=2212&next=1&sub=18
留言列表
