The twelfth annual meeting of the Consultative Committee of the Colombo Plan for Cooperative Economic Development in South and Southeast Asia was held in Tokyo, Japan, from October 31 through November 17, 1960. The session consisted of the officials' meeting (October 31 to November 11) and the ministerial meeting (November 14 to 17), and was attended by nearly 160 delegates from the 21 member countries of the Colombo Plan, along with observers from Afghanistan and five international organizations. Besides adopting the ninth annual report, the Committee examined the economic situation in the area and noted that progress had been made during the year under review; in most countries production had increased and conditions were favorable to the expansion of both public and private investment. The delegates reported that the mobilization of domestic resources in the area had improved and that several countries had taken measures to restrain inflationary pressures. As a result of more favorable balance of payments conditions and an increase in external investment, the inflow of capital goods into the area had generally increased. The Committee, in noting these most welcome developments, drew attention to the fact that in many instances substantially increased financial resources had become available to the members of the Colombo Plan as the direct result of the efforts exerted by these developing countries themselves.

The International Lead and Zinc Study Group held its third session in Mexico City from March 20 to 24, 1961. Twenty-three of the twenty-five countries composing the Study Group, including Denmark which was admitted to membership at the meeting, were present at the session held under the chairmanship of Ambassador Antonio Carillo Flores, President of the Study Group for 1961. The Study Group decided to curtail lead supplies to a level of approximately 2 percent below estimated world consumption in 1961, in view of the existence of substantial stocks of unsold metal and an estimated surplus of about 90,000 tons of supplies over the record consumption in 1960. Australia, Mexico, Peru, Sweden, the United States, and the members of the European Economic Community announced that they were taking specific actions to reduce mine and/or metal production. In addition, the Canadian industry had previously stated that it was curtailing lead mine production in 1961, and Yugoslavia had made known its intention to reduce either production or exports. In connection with these moves, the United States announced its readiness to negotiate, until May 15, 1961, contracts for the barter of surplus lead stocks accumulated before December 31, 1960, against surplus agricultural commodities. The purpose of this action was to remove some of the accumulated lead stocks. Estimates of supplies anticipated that the lead exporters among the centrally-planned economies (principally the Soviet Union, Poland, and Bulgaria) would not increase the level of their exports above that of 1960. Representatives of the Soviet Union and Poland expressed their intention to cooperate with the other members of the group but were unable to submit essential data; consequently, the world production and consumption figures did not include statistics from the centrally-planned economies.

The International Wheat Council held its 31st session in London from November 7 to 19, 1960, for the purpose of reviewing the world wheat situation in accordance with article 21 of the 1959 International Wheat Agreement. The meeting was attended by representatives of 29 member countries and by observers from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the European Economic Community. According to the press, the results of the second annual review, published on December 12, 1960, revealed that although climatic conditions had created unusually favorable preconditions for an expansion of the world wheat trade during 1960–61, the world surplus at the end of the season was expected to be larger than ever. The press reported that the cause of the wheat surplus problem was government intervention in production, pricing, and trading. Government measures introduced during and shortly after World War II to meet supply deficiencies in a war-disrupted world had been allowed to continue in effect, although the years since the war had seen growing surpluses. According to reports, there had been few changes in national policies affecting producer price supports in 1960; among 25 cases classified by the Council, supports had been reduced in only two instances, while in six instances they had been raised and in seventeen they had remained unchanged. In the four main wheat exporting countries—the United States, Canada, Argentina, and Australia—the end-of-season carry-overs as of July 31 were expected to reach an unprecedented total of 60.4 million metric tons, 37.3 million metric tons over the normal stock surplus. The ultimate solution of wheat surplus problems, concluded the press, depended on a growing adjustment of national wheat policies to international realities.