Australia's export commodity prices rose to yet another new high in June.
The Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) index of commodity prices rose 1.3 per cent in June in terms of special drawing rights (SDRs)*, preliminary estimates from the central bank show.
"The largest contributors to the rise in June were increases in the estimated export prices of coking and thermal coal, reflecting the ongoing movement to higher contract prices," the RBA said in a note with the data released on Friday.
The gain over the year was due mainly those commodities, along with iron ore, the RBA said.
The SDR-based index of commodity prices hit a new high in August last year, after recovering from the slump in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.
Since then, the index that begins in July 1982, hit record highs in each of the past seven months.
The rising exchange rate took the edge of the rise in commodity prices in Australian dollar terms, but it still rose by 12 per cent over the past year.
The commodities boom has lifted the index by 260 per cent over the past decade in SDR terms, by 125 per cent in terms of the stronger Australian dollar and by 360 per cent in US dollar terms.
The strength of the commodity price boom and surge in mining investment it has stimulated has been repeatedly cited by the RBA as a catalyst for a likely further rise in interest rates "at some point".
* The value of the SDR is calculated by the International Monetary Fund on the basis of a weighted basket of four currencies - US dollar, euro, Japanese yen, and pound.
