Export commodity prices up again: RBA AUSTRALIA'S export commodity prices posted their third consecutive monthly rise in January, Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) figures show. The RBA's index of commodity prices in January was 2.6 per cent higher in terms of a basket of foreign currencies compared with December and up by 7.6 per cent from the two-year low reached in October. After the three monthly gains, the index was 14.8 per cent beneath the peak of July 2011, but still more than three times its level of late 2003 when the commodity price boom was about to begin. The RBA said the main contributor to the rise in January was iron ore, with base metals and rural commodities broadly unchanged. Over the past year, the index was down by 6.4 per cent, thanks mainly to lower prices for coking coal. The foreign currency price index is measured in terms of special drawing rights (SDRs), an average of four major currencies - the US dollar, euro, Japanese yen, and British pound. In Australian dollar terms, the index rose by 2.0 per cent in January as a higher exchange rate partly offset the foreign currency price rises.