Commodity prices up for 4th month: RBA AUSTRALIA'S export commodity prices rose for the fourth consecutive month in February, Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) figures show. The RBA's index of commodity prices rose 2.3 per cent in the month in foreign currency terms. The rise built on increases in the preceding three months, leaving commodity prices 7.5 per cent above their recent low in October, but still down by 15.2 per cent from the all-time high reached in July 2011. Despite their fall from the 2011 peak, commodity prices are still up by 203 per cent from February 2003. In other words, commodity prices are still more than three times their level of a decade ago, thanks in large part to demand for raw materials from the industrialisation of China and other newly emerging economic powerhouses like India. The higher Australian dollar, a normal side-effect of surging commodity prices, has meant a smaller rise when prices are translated into the local currency. Even so, the rise in the Australian dollar price of commodities over the decade amounts to 95 per cent - a near-doubling - despite the higher exchange rate. The RBA said the main contributor to the rise in February was iron ore, although there were also rises in the prices of coking coal, crude oil and base metals. The RBA said much of the fall in commodity prices over the past year - 7.2 per cent in foreign currency terms and 4.8 per cent in Australian dollar terms - was the result of lower prices for coking coal and thermal coal. The foreign currency price index is measured in terms of special drawing rights (SDRs), an average of four major currencies - US dollar, euro, Japanese yen, and British pound.