Mineral development in the eighties: prospects and problems

Book · Thu Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1976

OSTI ID:7125373

Some new countries have sought to achieve economic independence in parallel with political sovereignty. This has influenced their attitudes toward investment and the development of their natural resources, including nonfuel minerals. Similar motivations have also affected the attitudes of countries such as the United States, Australia, Canada, and the USSR, which have equally found they cannot escape the facts of economic interdependence and ever closer links with world markets and world monetary and investment conditions. Meanwhile, other changes have combined to slow down new mineral development, especially in the Third World. These include rapidly rising costs, new threats to the security of investment, and new problems in organizing a satisfactory distribution of the risks and benefits among the many differing interests that are bound to be involved. Differences in outlook concerning the role of foreign investment in general and foreign private investment in particular have also sharpened. For all these reasons, recent years have seen an increasing disillusionment of private investors and a growing caution in committing themselves to new investments. These changes have not caused, nor are they likely to cause, major supply shortages of nonfuel minerals for the economies of the industrialized countries, at least over the next decade or two. They are likely, however, to impede the economic development of those Third World countries in whose territories such minerals exist. There is a need to evolve a new philosophy of mutual interest in the orderly development of natural resources throughout the world. This would be of economic benefit to both producers and consumers.

• OSTI ID: 7125373
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
290400* -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Energy Resources
AVAILABILITY
CAPITAL
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
ECONOMICS
ENERGY SUPPLIES
FORECASTING
GLOBAL ASPECTS
INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
INVESTMENT
MARKET
MINERAL RESOURCES
PUBLIC RELATIONS
RECYCLING
RESOURCES
SOCIO-ECONOMIC FACTORS
SOCIOLOGY