World trade offers Christmas gifts of gold, frankincense, myrrh … and bans and bronze?

Eric Jackson
Editor at Global Trader magazine
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Post date: Wednesday, 21st December 2011

As anyone who has ever received a £1 pair of Union Jack boxer shorts off Stockport market that fall apart after one wearing (me) or an avocado slicer in their Christmas stocking will appreciate, Yuletide isn’t always about giving, it’s often about giving you grief.

Even at this time of year, wheeling and dealing never sleeps, and often the busiest ‘entrepreneurs’ are the thieves who nick our presents and sell them down the pub.

But the top trade at the moment – thanks to the soaring cost of raw materials around the world – is in metal, so sub stations, churches and telephone exchanges are having their copper, lead and steel ripped off on a daily basis.

The thieving scallies have upped the ante, though, by running off – well staggering to a waiting truck and making a quick getaway - with a Barbara Hepworth bronze sculpture valued at £500,000 from Dulwich Park in south London.

That’s one hell of a lot of scrap metal to be touting round the merchants of Croydon, and once they find a buyer they will only get a fraction of the price that the piece is worth. Then again, the piece, called Two Forms (Divided Circle), which was cut from its plinth, may have been stolen to order and is on its way to some wealthy villain’s garden as we speak as a Christmas present to his art-loving missus.

One gift that will definitely not be top of most people’s list this year – even though it is one of the original presents – is frankincense, which according to the Bible was part of a triple treat from the Three Wise Men to Jesus that also included gold and myrrh.

While gold has been trading on the commodities markets like there’s no tomorrow (and they could be right on that score), and the cost of myrrh is hard to establish down my local Debenhams, frankincense is more valuable than, well, gold dust.

That’s because the boswellia tree which produces the fragrant resin for many perfumes and incense, is dying out, according to ecologists, due to land clearance for crops and drought in places such as Oman, Ethiopia and Yemen.

Consequently, I’m as likely to receive any frankincense-based product as Liverpool winning anything now that Suarez has received an eight-match ban for alleged racism (a nice little Christmas present for their rivals).

Way, way across the water from Liverpool, on the other side of the Atlantic, and not that far from the South Pole, there’s not much good will to all men at the moment.

OK, so it’s the opposite pole from where Santa hangs out, but it still seems Scrooge-like of the Mercosur bloc of South American countries to gang up on the Falkland Islands and stop their ships from entering their ports.

Actually, it’s not a Christmas snub to the Falklands, per se, but to Britain, as we all know, which goes back to the war over ‘Las Malvinas’ with Argentina.

But do Brazil  Uruguay and Paraguay (landlocked, which makes any ban seem rather pointless in their case), along with associate members Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, really want to start some trade war during such a dodgy financial climate?

Our Foreign Office has said it is "very concerned by this latest Argentine attempt to isolate the Falkland Islands people and damage their livelihoods, for which there is no justification."

Roger Spink, president of the Falklands Chamber of Commerce, said they were a small community and felt increasingly under blockade.

''If we were Palestine, the European Union would be up in arms," he told the BBC. He’s got a point.

Meanwhile in Cuba – officially an atheist state but one where the population is deeply religious - the ruling Castro family has got into the Christmas spirit by giving out money.

Well actually it’s the country’s banks, at the behest of the government, who are offering loans to businesses, farmers and households for the first time in an effort to boost private enterprise and reduce state dependency.   

The minimum loan for the self-employed will be around £80 while for farmers it will be around £25. In western terms it’s hardly megabucks, but it’s a start for Cubans seeking a bit of wealth-creation.

We can only wish them well, along with a Merry Christmas. Let’s just pray their free-market never extends to buying bronze statues that have fallen off the back of a lorry.

And a Merry Christmas to you all from Global Trader. 

Global Trader