Iron ore and steel. Strategic, volatile and primed for conflict
... the top dog, is an important part of that mix. But the large volumes presented by available open source statistics on the BRICS are reminiscent of the Glasnost days of Mikhail Gorbachev and the impending collapse of the USSR command economy. You can't be competitive producing, an award winning volume of, for example, porcelain dinner plates ... ... for Russian ore and steel, notably at the expense of producers in India. Meanwhile state and parastatal companies based in China and Hong Kong use clever methods to dominate world iron ore and crude steel production and their logistics. To assume that ...