Performance at month end

Merrill Lynch World Mining Tst PLC
5 July 2001


MONTHLY PERFORMANCE

MERRILL LYNCH WORLD MINING TRUST plc

All information is at 29 June 2001 and unaudited.

Performance at month end with net income reinvested

                                               One   Three   One   Three  Five
                                             month  months  year   years years
Net asset value                              -4.2%   15.5% 30.4%  108.8% 19.7%
Share price                                  -5.6%   15.6% 32.7%   98.1% 19.4%
HSBC Global Mining Index(Capital Only)       -5.0%   10.9% 22.2%   62.9% -3.4%

At month end
Net asset value                                   128.96p
Share price                                       105.75p
Discount to NAV                                   18.0%
Net yield                                         1.2%
Total assets                                      £217.9m
Gearing                                           2.7%
Ordinary shares in issue                          168,200,000

(100,000 shares were repurchased and cancelled during the month).
Sector                     % Total           Country                    % Total
                            Assets                                       Assets
Analysis                                     Analysis
Diversified                   30.8           South Africa                  31.1
Base Metals                   24.3           Europe                        18.2
Gold                          20.0           Canada                        16.8
Platinum                      17.5           Australia                     14.5
Industrial Minerals            4.7           Latin America                 13.3
Silver/Diamonds                3.2           USA                            6.6
Gold Bullion                   0.4           Gold Bullion                   0.4
Net current                  (0.9)           Net current                  (0.9)
liabilities                  -----           liabilities                  -----
                             100.0                                        100.0
                             -----                                        -----

Ten Largest Equity Investments
Company                     % Investments       Country of Risk
Impala Platinum                       8.8       South Africa
BHP Billiton                          8.7       Global
Anglo Platinum                        6.0       South Africa
Cominco                               5.8       Canada
Gold Fields                           5.7       South Africa
Minas Buenaventura                    5.7       Peru
Pechiney                              5.3       France
Rio Tinto                             5.0       Global
Alcan Aluminium                       4.4       Canada
Vale Rio Doce                         4.2       Brazil
                                     ----
                                     59.6
                                     ----



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

June saw a setback in mining shares. This was not entirely unexpected. As we
foreshadowed in last month's report, mining shares have been conspicuously
stronger recently than the prices of the metals that they produce. This led to
the development of a performance 'gap' which had to close. Sadly it has closed
through mining shares dropping rather than metals' prices rising. Mining
shares though are still vulnerable. Second quarter profits are not going to be
particularly strong and sentiment may remain weak through the summer until the
positive effects of Greenspan's interest rate cuts are felt.

The mining sector saw some great changes during June. Anglo's merger with De
Beers was consummated at the beginning of the month and Billiton's merger with
BHP at the end. This creates two mining titans. We have taken a more cautious
view to the Anglo stock and feel that its re-rating is complete for the
moment. Around 1% of the portfolio is invested in Anglo stock - a big
underweight position in comparison with our benchmark - although we retain a
chunk of Anglo Platinum and some Anglo Gold. In the case of BHP Billiton we
feel that the synergy benefits have yet to be seen and this has now become our
second largest holding at 8.7% of the portfolio.

Our good relative performance during the month, though quite modest in
magnitude, was driven partly by our overweight position in the gold equities -
especially Gold Fields and Harmony. We supported Harmony's capital raising
during June which helped the company to pay for recent acquisitions.

Base metals prices are now at a two-year low. We believe that if Greenspan's
medicine works, we could see metals prices bottom out in the seasonally weak
summer months. Meanwhile sentiment towards gold is on an improving trend and
we are quite comfortable with a 20% weighting to this area - significantly
overweight in comparison with our benchmark.

Sources: Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, HSBC Global Mining Index

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).



4 July 2001

ENDS