New horizons for an old industry

The central idea of the ‘new economy’ is that wealth is increasingly embodied in intellectual property—in the weightless exploitation of knowledge rather than in products. In Australia the new economy has already been linked with the fall from favour of the resources sector in the stock market. Despite this, economic growth favours the expansion of old and new sectors alike, and although the emergence of the new economy will change mining, it will not displace it.

In the U.S.A. a remarkable surge of mineral raw material use has been seen over the past decade, partly as a result of investment in information and communications technology equipment; growth in productivity has accelerated, bringing with it higher spending on consumer durables; and U.S. imports have stimulated world trade and, hence, growth elsewhere. Some of these new developments in consumption should be transferable to Europe and other countries, yet at the same time it is very unlikely that developing countries will be able to leap-frog the establishment of basic infrastructure and the demand for mineral raw materials that this creates.

In general, therefore, the effect of the new economy on the mining industry is predicted to be benign, but it must adjust to the specific impacts of the internet on marketing and trading arrangements, the investor attitudes that have led to the withdrawal of funds and the new opportunities for the management of knowledge.