The surge in commodity prices slowed sharply in the month of January, according to the Reserve Bank’s Commodity Price Index for the month, but the annual rate accelerated.
The RBA said yesterday that the preliminary estimates for January indicate that the index increased Australian dollar terms by 4.1% in January, less than half the 9.3% jump reported for December.
In SDR (Special Drawing Rights) terms the index rose by 5.3% (on a monthly average basis), after increasing by 8.8% in December (revised up from 8.1%).
The RBA said the increase was led by the prices of iron ore and coking coal, while the rural subindex increased in the month, while the base metals subindex was little changed.
Over the past year, the index has increased by 55.7% in SDR terms, led by higher coking coal and iron ore prices (45.5% in SDR terms in December). The index has increased by 43.6% in Australian dollar terms (up from 39.7%) in December.
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Consistent with previous releases, preliminary estimates for iron ore, coking coal, thermal coal and LNG export prices are being used for the most recent months, based on market information.
Using spot prices for the bulk commodities, the index declined by 6.8% in January in SDR terms, but remains 58.9% higher over the past year. In December, the RBA reported a fall of 0.4% in this index in December, while t was up 68% over 2016.
