78 SOCIAL SCIENTIST more than the last fifty years, the issue of price stabilisation of various commodities remains unsolved and the proposal for setting up a multi-billion dollar fund to finance an ambitious commodity price stabilisation programme has never attracted sufficient international backing to come into force—a measure of dwindling enthusiasm of the industrialised countries for commodity cooperation. None of the new agreements has economic muscle. Like the cocoa and sugar pacts, they are forums where importing and exporting countries exchange information and discuss issues of mutual interest—except the critical one of prices. Many observers feel that the developed importing countries are dictating terms in the international commodity trade due to a number of interrelated advantages enjoyed by them. One among them is the emergence of close substitutes and synthetics patronised by the developed countries. The synthetic substitutes have steadily and systematically been replacing the natural products from the world market. TRENDS IN WORLD NR Table 1PRODUCTION t AND SR(1955- WD CONSUMPTION (1984) )F Base : 1956=100 Production Production Percentage Percentage Year index of index of share of share of NR SR NR in World SR in consumption World consump- tion 1956 100 100 64.0 36.0 1960 105 155 47.9 52.1 1965 123 248 38.8 61.2 1970 161 478 34.7 65.3 1975 172 557 32.4 67.6 1980 200 706 30.2 69.8 1981 192 692 30.4 69.6 1982 195 637 31.5 68.5 1983 209 674 32.3 67.7 1984 221 738 32.5 67.5 Sources : (1) Hidde P Smit, Globe Industry Report, Forecast/or World Rubber Economy to the year 2000, M [acmillian Publishers Ltd, London, P-332. (2) Rubber Statistical Bullettin, IRSG, Vol. 40, No. 4, London, January 1986, pp. 4-5,