How did the mineral trade start in the Philippines?

Even before colonial settlers occupied the Philippines, Filipinos have already been trading mineral products such as Gold and Copper for barter trade with China, India, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Now, the Philippines is home to the fifth largest mineral reserve in the world because it situated along a belt of volcanoes called the Pacific Ring of Fire, where plate convergence results to copious resources of mineral deposits such as gold, copper, chromite, platinum, cobalt, and nickel. As of 2012, the Mines and Geosciences Bureau estimates that the country has $840 billion worth of mineral wealth and about 30 million hectares of land areas have the potential to have abundant mineral deposits.A large number of mineral products are exported to East Asian Countries. Being the world’s top nickel ore supplier, China is the Philippines’ number one buyer when it comes to mineral products. Prices of nickel ore exports averaged at $31.34 per WMT, much higher than the average of $15.78 per WMT in 2016.

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