Performance at Month End

Merrill Lynch World Mining Tst PLC
9 July 2002


MONTHLY PERFORMANCE

MERRILL LYNCH WORLD MINING TRUST plc

All information is at 28 June 2002 and unaudited.

Performance at month end with net income reinvested

                                                                         One      Three       One     Three       Five
                                                                       month     months      year     years      years

Net asset value                                                       -13.4%      -2.9%     19.5%     74.9%      56.0%
Share price                                                           -14.6%       1.3%     27.6%     86.1%      57.0%
HSBC Global Mining Index (capital only)                               -11.5%      -8.1%      0.8%     25.2%       7.6%
MSCI World Metals & Mining Index (capital only)                        -9.1%      -8.4%     -2.6%      1.0%     -18.3%


Sources: Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, HSBC Global Mining Index, Datastream


At month end

Net asset value                         150.62p            Discount to NAV:                                    12.7%
Share price:                            131.50p            Net historic yield:                                  2.4%
Total assets:                           £253.6m
Gearing:                                4.1%               Effective gearing:                                   5.6%
Ordinary shares in issue:               162,945,461


Sector Analysis                                      Total Assets (%)   Country Analysis                Total Assets (%)

Gold                                                            30.5    South Africa                               35.2
Diversified                                                     24.4    Europe                                     17.8
Base Metals                                                     18.7    Latin America                              14.2
Platinum                                                        11.8    Canada                                     14.1
Industrial Minerals                                              7.8    Australasia                                11.6
Silver/Diamonds                                                  6.9    USA                                         5.8
Gold Bullion                                                     0.8    China                                       1.5
Base Metal Futures                                               0.5    Gold Bullion                                0.8
Net current liabilities                                         (1.5)   Base Metal Futures                          0.5
                                                                        Net current liabilities                    (1.5)
                                                               -----                                              -----
                                                               100.0                                              100.0
                                                               -----                                              -----


Ten Largest Equity Investments

Company                                             % Investments      Country of Risk

Gold Fields                                                   9.9      South Africa
Impala Platinum                                               6.9      South Africa
Harmony Gold Mining                                           6.6      South Africa
Minas Buenaventura                                            6.6      Peru
BHP Billiton                                                  5.7      Global
Aber Diamond                                                  5.2      Canada
CVRD                                                          4.5      Brazil
Pechiney                                                      4.2      France
Western Mining Corporation                                    3.4      Australia
Anglo Platinum                                                3.4      South Africa
                                                             ----
Total                                                        56.4
                                                             ----



Commenting on the markets, Graham Birch, representing the Investment Manager
noted:

Performance

June saw a sizeable correction in mining share prices - with gold shares leading
the move downwards. Mining shares even managed to underperform a falling broader
equity market that was under siege from bad corporate news. Despite taking some
profits in the gold portion of the portfolio during May, our 'overweight'
position in gold hurt performance in comparison with our benchmark, the HSBC
Global Mining Index (for comparison, the FT Gold Mines Index dropped 17% in
June).

Although most metal prices slipped back during June, this is not really enough
to account for the weakness of the market. The most plausible explanation for
the sell-off is the simple fact that mining is one of the only stockmarket
sectors to be showing positive returns for the first half. Some healthy profit
taking is thus to be expected given the sloppiness of the rest of the market.
More fundamentally, investors may have reacted in an adverse way to the
incoherent nature of the new South African Minerals bill. Our view is that the
market will quickly absorb the changed law and that it has minimal impact on our
portfolio.

The Company's interim report, with a review of the first half of 2002, will be
published at the beginning of August.



Derivatives

The combined holding in aluminium and copper futures remain below 0.5% of the
portfolio. A put option that we have written in aluminium could, if exercised,
increase the Trust's direct base metals exposure to 1.5% of NAV.

We have written a gold call option which, if exercised, would result in the sale
of the Trust's 10,000 ounce gold bullion holding at $320/oz.

We have written put options in Alcoa, MIM and Western Mining Corporation which,
if exercised, would increase the Trust's holdings in these companies to 1.8%,
1.3% and 4.0% of the NAV respectively.



Latest information is available by typing www.mlim.co.uk/its on the internet,
'MLIMINDEX' on Reuters, 'MLIM' on Bloomberg or '8800' on Topic 3 (ICV terminal).



9 July 2002



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