Falling global food and fuel costs offer poor countries little relief (Washington Post)
Washington Post published an article on how costs are down from their peaks in the Ukraine war but are still up compared with last year. Pressure on commodity markets also eased after Wall Street speculators began selling their holdings in response to the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate increases, which made bets on rising commodity prices less certain. The outlook for wheat prices became especially cloudy in the first months of the war after Russia stopped its routine reporting of export data to the United Nations’ Comtrade database, according to Joseph Glauber, a senior research fellow who has approximated the missing export figures by analyzing purchase reports from Moscow’s customers. “They’re showing about the same level of exports from Russia this year as last year,” he said. “Russian trade is on track.”