When an economist, economics professor, or economics textbook talks about a commodity, they mean a good that possesses the following properties:
usually produced and/or sold by many different companies
Is uniform in quality between companies that produce/sell it. You cannot tell the difference between one firm's product and another.
Lumber, oil, and electricity could all be considered commodities, while Levi's jeans would not be, as consumers consider them to be distinct from jeans sold by other firms. Economists call this distinctness "product differentiation".
A commodity is a raw material product that can be bought and sold, such as copper or coffee. A basic good used in commerce that is interchangeable with other commodities of the same type.
Commodities are most often used as inputs in the production of other goods or services. The quality of a given commodity may differ slightly, but it is essentially uniform across producers. When they are traded on an exchange, commodities must also meet specified minimum standards, also known as a basis grade.
The basic idea is that there is little differentiation between a commodity coming from one producer and the same commodity from another producer - a barrel of oil is basically the same product, regardless of the producer.
Commodities may be mined in one country and mostly exported via a global trade market for consumption elsewhere.
As commodity demand varies, so might the GDP contribution that mining makes to a country.
Mineral exploration activity does not necessarily correlate to those countries with the largest mining production value.
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