Given the fact that prices of perishable foods already started to rise and an imbalance in supply-and-demand continued to narrow thanks to economic growth, the fall in GDP deflator will be smaller in January-March.

We see nothing on the horizon that can overturn the growing imbalance between demand and supply. Nor is the growing demand just a passing phase: We are smack in the middle of one of the most dramatic population explosions this planet has seen since the agricultural revolution in the early days of civilization.

In the big picture, the whole world at every level, micro, macro, physiological, psychological, material, economical, spiritual, all are a demand-supply problem.

Supply isn't going up as much as demand so the prices of metal, especially that of copper and zinc, are going up.

There's not much you can do about (the prices). It's a political matter. Of course, supply and demand comes into it, but I don't think the war in Iraq or (Hurricane) Katrina has any particular effect on it.

We recognize that prices are above what is justifiable on the basis of supply and demand fundamentals.