UNCTAD reports on investment boom in mining. Rising commodity markets have generated an increase in foreign direct investment (fdi) in mining and extractive industries. Multinational corporations (MCs) dominate the natural resource extraction industry, especially in low income countries. These are the main conclusions of the recent annual report on investment trends published by UNCTAD (the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) (see EUROPE 9518). Rising demand for oil, gas and metals, especially from Asia, has sparked off a boom in investment in exploration and extraction. Extraction industries tend to be behind the recent rises in fdi in many developing countries rich in natural resources, particularly in Africa. The boom has given rise to a flurry of massive mergers and acquisitions in the industry and a concentration of the market. The UNCTAD report shows that the relative scale of MCs varies from industry to industry. For metal, for example, 23 of the 25 biggest producers in 2005 were private MCs. Only two were state-owned companies. In the oil and gas industry, the vast majority of the 50 biggest companies were mainly public-owned. The report also sheds light on the emergence of new MCs in the extractive industries sector. Private companies remain the biggest in terms of foreign assets, a number of developing country companies, particularly in the oil and gas industry, are rapidly climbing up the global ladder. The combined fdi of the seven biggest state enterprises, CNOOC, CNPC, Sinopec (China), Lukoil (Russia), ONGC (India), Petrobras (Brazil) and Petronas (Malaysia) exceeded 528 million barrels equivalent of oil in 2005 compared with only 22 million a decade ago. The expansion of their business abroad is partly due to the rising demand from high growth countries in Asia. UNCTAD believes the commodity boom should offer prospects for development and poverty reduction in countries exporting mineral resources, but huge effort to deal with the economic, environmental, social and political impact of mineral resource extraction will be required if the income arising from the extractive industries is to be used to foster development. The report concludes that the global impact of revenue from the industry hinges on how the income is distributed between the foreign companies and country in question, and the way the country's share is managed, divided and used.