Today Online 23 Apr 08;
TEMASEK Holdings plans to build a "multi-billion dollar portfolio" of commodity assets to benefit from Asia's hunger for raw materials such as iron ore and coking coal.
"We see value because of demand rather than price," Mr Nagi Hamiyeh, Temasek's Managing Director for natural resources, said yesterday. "There are no big projects coming on line soon, so there are bottlenecks in the system while demand is continuing to grow because of China and India."
While commodity prices are at "very high levels", Temasek will invest in producers and early stage manufacturing projects from Australia to Africa to benefit from their "development upside", Mr Hamiyeh said.
"We like very much the bulk commodities, iron ore and coking coal," he said. "Clearly for gold and platinum there's a different driver behind the price because they are a hedge against currency risks and inflation." — Bloomberg
