Toward Stability for Copper

When government ministers from four of the free world's main copper-exporting countries gathered in the sweltering Zambian capital of Lusaka on June 1, the copper-consuming nations had every reason to worry. The idea, as conceived last fall by Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda and Chilean President Eduardo Frei, was to set up a price-and-quota-fixing copper cartel to control the world market. After all, their countries plus Peru and the Congo produce 70% of the earth's copper sold for export. * With economies largely based on copper, all four nations have suffered as the price of the red metal outside the U.S. tumbled from nearly $1 a pound in early 1966 to around 45-c- recently.

Last week the consumer nations' fears faded. The delegates of the producing countries listened, argued, split hairs, stood attentively at interminable cocktail parties and even squeezed in a side trip to gape at Victoria Falls and float down the Zambezi River looking for elephants. But the first-of-its-kind conference ended with only an innocuous agreement to coordinate research and information policies. For that, the four countries set up an Intergovernmental Council of Copper Exporting Countries, to be based in Paris. Its first move will be to open an information bureau. "Consumers must not worry," said mustachioed Chilean Minister of Mines Alejandro Hales, the conference's dominant delegate. "We are not going for their throats. This will not be a cabal."

Despite their modest achievements, most of the conferees viewed the result as a good start toward stabilizing copper's violent price swings, which chiefly reward speculators. "From now on we will have harmony in our policies," beamed Javier Perez de Cuellar, Peruvian Foreign Secretary General. "This conference," added Zambian Foreign Minister Simon Kapwepwe, "should be a lesson to all underdeveloped countries. Those who grow sugar and coffee should start coming together too."

* Though the U.S. is the world's foremost copper producer, it consumes more than its mines deliver. Using its defense stockpile as a club, the Government keeps the price of domestic copper (currently 38-c- per Ib.) well below world prices.

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