Commodity prices beat gains in stocks, bonds and the dollar this year as China, the biggest user of everything from cotton to copper to soybeans, led the recovery from the first global recession since World War II.

The Thomson Reuters/Jefferies CRB index of 19 raw materials gained 15 percent through yesterday. The MSCI All Country World Index of stocks rose 13 percent with dividends reinvested. Global bonds returned 4.7 percent, based on Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Global Broad Market Index, and the U.S. Dollar Index, a gauge against six counterparts, added 2.1 percent. The CRB outpaced the other measures for the first time since 2007.

Investors snapped up raw materials this year as China’s growth, the fastest of any major economy, spurred record demand for sugar and soybeans and rising imports of copper. At the same time, crops were ruined by Russia's worst drought in at least a half century, flooding in Canada and parched fields in Kazakhstan, Europe and South America. 

“This year has been incredibly strong,” said Nic Johnson, who helps manage about $24 billion in commodities at Pacific Investment Management Co. in Newport Beach, California.  “You’ve had strong growth from China that put a bid into copper, and global crop problems cause huge rallies.”

This was the first year since 2005 that commodities, stocks, bonds and the dollar all rose as the global economic recovery proved resilient.

Gains in the CRB were led by cotton, which surged 89 percent this year, reaching a record Dec. 21, on speculation that supply would fail to keep pace with rising demand in China. Silver, the precious metal most used in industry, jumped 81 percent as it attracted investors betting on both faster and slower economic growth. Corn jumped 49 percent and coffee climbed to a 13-year high as inventories shrunk and bad weather threatened crops in South America.

China’s economy expanded more than 10 percent this year, according the median of 18 economists’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. While growth will slow to 9 percent next year, that will still be three times the rate of the U.S. and six the times the speed of the euro region, based on Bloomberg surveys of as many as 69 economists.

“There is no doubt that demand is coming from China, and there are other emerging markets where demand grew,” said James Paulsen, who oversees $350 billion as the chief investment strategist at Minneapolis-based Wells Capital Management. “Commodities have gone up because the economy was gearing up. It became a sustainable global economic recovery.”