Mining in Australia did not really take off until the emergence of closer markets in the 1960s. Australia´s mineral wealth supports many economies in Asia with China and India recently fast growing in demand. For almost all commodities Australia ranks among the five leading states in the world both in production and reserves. Although investment in mining is huge and the sector provides half of all exports in goods and services the benefits for Australia are modest in terms of employment, GDP and tax revenues. The main reason is that most mineral products for export only show little degrees of processing and transformation. To the contrary, the more profitable steps in value chains are located abroad.

Production and trade with minerals remains to be an important tool for the development of South America’s economy. Chile and Brazil are the most important countries of export of ore and energy resources worldwide. With regard to this it is crucial asking for social and economic consequences of economic primarisation during financial and economic crisis.

Between 2003 and 2008 rising demand by China and other factors have led to substantial increases in global commodity prices. This demand is juxtaposed by vast untapped resources in South-East Asia: Can and should resource-rich South-East Asia respond to surging prices by increased exploitation? This contribution discusses the opportunities and threats that such a resource-based development strategy entails. Despite significant reserves, Malaysia refrained from a revitalisation of its tin mining for good reasons. Indonesia, on the other hand, is rapidly exploiting its shrinking reserves and struggling hard to put institutions for a sustainable management of its abundant natural resources in place. The critical issue remains how to make them work effectively.

During recent years the development of world-wide timber production and the international timber trade proved to be extremely dynamic. Apart from a strong increase in the volume of trade in some industries – especially the paper industry – drastic processes of restructuring took place. As well as that, deflexions of the regional flows of trade arose, whereby particularly some Asian States, above all China, could strengthen their position within the timber trade from being purely timber suppliers to exporters of further processed products. Efforts to limit the illegal timber trade but also attempts to create a sustainable timber production, led to a strong increase of certified forest – above all plantation areas. In view of the future energy supply and the ways of dealing with the climate change, forestry plays an ever more meaningful role.

The first part of this article gives an overview about the importance of secondary raw materials, recycling and waste management measures as well as the regulations of international trade. The second part emphasizes different spatial impacts of cross-border trade with secondary raw materials on the basis of four examples: the influence of world market prices on local collection systems for waste paper, the ramifications of the emerging global economy on locally situated scrap industries, the influence of donated clothes to the textile industry in developing countries as well as environmental and social problems caused by the disposal of electrical and electronic waste.

The economic globalization also includes trade with agricultural products. The cross-border trade with agricultural products increases constantly – though not without conflicts. Concerning production and marketing of many agricultural products the interests of developed and developing countries are diametrically opposed. In negotiations about the liberalization of world trade developing countries press for the opening of agricultural markets and the cutback of protectionism, whereas developed countries wall of their markets against superior foreign competitors.