The Financial Post reports in its Tuesday edition Scotiabank's commodity price index, a useful gauge of global prices, plunged to its lowest level in August since early 2005. The Post's Peter Koven, writing in Trading Desk, says the index reading of 91.3 was down 10.5 per cent from July, and was almost 14 per cent below the bottom reached during the global recession in April, 2009. While some commodities such as base metals are much higher now than they were in 2009, Scotiabank economist Patricia Mohr said there is broader weakness across the commodity spectrum today. The dreadful performance is underpinned by concern about China. Scotiabank expects China's economy to grow 6.8 per cent this year (close to the government's 7-per-cent target) and 6.4 per cent in 2016. Ms. Mohr said China's potential to "significantly lift raw material demand" will remain intact. For example, she noted that vehicle penetration in China is still a fraction of what it is in the United States, Canada and Japan. That points to "huge potential growth" in petrol and base-metal demand. In the short term, however, there is not much to be excited about. One bright spot in August was precious metals, which rallied on safe-haven demand.