Have Australian bulk exports seen worst?
Michael Byrnes Sydney, Feb 19: The worst could be over for much of Australia’s big commodity export sector now that long-feared price cuts have been imposed by recessed Japan on the country’s steelmaking bulk exports, economists and analysts believe. But commodity-watchers are divided on whether financial markets have fully absorbed the impact of an 18 per cent coking coal price cut and a 10-11 per cent iron ore price cut imposed by Japan for fiscal 1999/2000. Some think the Australian dollar faces further falls as financial markets catch up with the extent of the price cuts for Australia’s two main commodity exports to Japan but others believe markets have fully factored in their effect. But a ray of optimism has entered views of the bulk commodity trade now that the price cuts have been settled. “Probably this is the last of the bad news for (Australian) commodities,” Rob Henderson, chief economist at Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, told Reuters on Thursday. The possible exception was gol
