A prerequisite for the success of commodity agreements is that they should embrace the vast majority of producers and especially the largest of them. No transactions should be excluded, and substitute commodities should be covered by the agreements.

The most intractable of the difficulties in concluding commodity agreements lies in the fixing of the price range. Neither unduly high nor unduly low price scales are tenable. Future market conditions are not easily foreseeable, so the possibility of errors cannot be ruled out; regular adjustment of the price ranges is necessary.

When it comes to determining the price range, the importing and exporting countries, respectively, do not systematically advocate low and high prices. Certain importing countries are not opposed to a relatively high price because the difference between the international price and the tariff-protected price of domestic producers is thereby reduced; exporting countries in a favourable competitive position are often in favour of lower prices so that they will be able to increase their share of the market at the expense of less-competitive countries.

In concluding an agreement, the parties have to bear in mind that complete price stabilization is impossible. It would in fact be undesirable, because in the long run supply and demand need to remain in equilibrium, and the necessary adjustments in the economies concerned must not be precluded. Price fluctuations do not necessarily imply failure, because the fluctuations might well have been larger had the agreement not been concluded.

The method of stabilization needs to be chosen carefully, with due regard for the characteristics of the commodities concerned. The multilateral purchase contract and buffer-stock systems offer the advantage of not requiring any restrictions on production; new producers with improved technical equipment may participate.

A buffer stock needs to be sufficiently large if it is to achieve its purpose. Wider financing facilities are necessary; this is something to which the importing countries could contribute. Even then the buffer stock is better used together with other methods of stabilization. Because of the perishable nature of certain commodities or their bulk and high storage costs, however, a buffer stock is not always feasible. Buffer stocks alone often are not sufficient for the control of prices, and it is sometimes necessary for producers to restrict exports in order to reduce supply, thus pushing prices up.

So far as the producer countries are concerned, stabilization of incomes, rather than of prices, is the most important factor. Although commodity agreements may contribute to this, their relatively limited success has caused other proposals to be advanced.

Compensatory financing refers to international financial assistance to a country whose export earnings have suffered as a result of a decline in primary commodity prices. Such a system was instituted in 1963 by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In 1969 the IMF also began making loans available to countries having a balance-of-payments need in relation to the financing of buffer stocks under international commodity agreements.

The European Economic Community has established a stabilization fund for its associated overseas countries; prices must fall by a specified percentage before the mechanism of the fund goes into effect, and the richer beneficiary countries must repay the aid received.

Other proposals involve the introduction of simultaneous negotiations for a whole range of commodities. These discussions, however, and more particularly the administration of the resulting multicommodity agreement, would be highly complex. It may also be argued that the significance of export instability has been exaggerated and that most of the economies involved have suffered no serious damage. Thus, the resources devoted to countering price fluctuations and compensatory financing might be better employed in investments or technical assistance.

As to the possibility of the less-developed countries themselves influencing prices, circumstances vary from commodity to commodity. In the case of primary goods, such as coffee, that are produced only in the less-developed countries and for which practically no substitutes exist, action to increase prices can easily be taken if demand is not too much affected by price increases. A simple way to raise prices would be for the governments of producing countries to levy a duty on exports. Attempts by some developing countries to raise prices, however, can induce other developing countries to increase their output. For example, African coffee production was stimulated when Latin-American countries took steps to raise the price of their coffee.

The fact that there are substitutes for a few primary goods (such as cotton, wool, and rubber) limits the extent to which primary-goods producers can raise their prices. Also, most commodities produced by less-developed countries face competition from the developed countries, which may produce the same commodities (such as petroleum, sugar, rice, and tobacco) or goods substitutable in varying degrees (such as soybean oil for peanut oil).

Many agricultural commodities are protected in the developed countries by tariffs, which means that their requirements are often met entirely from domestic production. Some developed countries produce surpluses that are sold abroad at low, subsidized prices. Such commodities are therefore traded to a relatively small extent on world markets. The sales of the less-developed countries are thus influenced by the developed countries’ national policies and by the price at which these countries sell their surpluses on the residual markets. The less-developed countries that produce minerals and metals seemingly have the most favourable export prospects because demand for such finite commodities is expanding among the developed countries, many of which are concerned over the depletion of their domestic resources.