Commodities Comment:Global car sales growth slows in 1Q

Global car sales, an important measure of the health of the world economyand driver of commodity demand, continued growing in 1Q but only just. AEuropean recovery was outweighed by slower US & Chinese growth & somenoticeable declines in emerging markets. Full-year growth forecasts areunlikely to be met, though the rate of growth should accelerate with Marchoffering a slightly more positive tone.

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    LME tin dropped below $16,000/t for the first time since June 2010 onWednesday and is now down 18% YTD and 30% since the middle of lastyear. These price falls are a reflection of a market that is comfortably insurplus, due to slowing (but still positive) demand growth and no sign of anypermanent supply cuts. We don’t believe the Indonesia policy of restrictingexports will have a meaningful impact on addressing this imbalance.

    Chinese macro-economic data released on Wednesday was poor