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mpc: 10 The co-incident recoveries in the main economic blocs and continuing strong growth in China gave rise to the possibility that worldwide inflation could pick up too, as it had done in similar circumstances in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Commodity prices were rising: oil spot and futures prices were higher, metals prices had risen by almost 10% on the month and non-food agricultural prices had also risen. But while the increases over recent months were quite marked in US dollar terms, this partly reflected the weakness of the dollar. In any case, commodity prices were probably rather less important as a proximate indicator of inflation in the industrial countries than they had been thirty years ago, as output was less commodity-intensive and monetary policies were better focused. So a repeat of that earlier inflationary episode seemed unlikely.