CANBERRA: The commodities cyle has driven a boom in Australian export prices for the March quarter, while import prices have remained consistent. That’s the main theme to be drawn from this morning’s International Trade Price Index released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The March quarter price index for Australia’s imports and exports shows that import prices are consistent, but export prices remain volatile. Import prices rose by 1.2% from the previous quarter, but dropped by 0.6% against the corresponding quarter last year. That was in stark contrast to the export price index, which were 9.4% higher than the December quarter and a whopping 29.1% higher than the same time last year.
The rise in export prices was due to a turn in the commodities cycle, with iron ore reaching a high of over $94 per tonne in late February. “Global demand for Australia’s mining commodities in the March quarter 2017 was reflected in the higher prices received by exporters for a range of products”, the ABS said. Pete Wargent, of AllenWargent Advisory, prepared this chart which shows the recent uptick in export prices as the commodities cycle rose. Metalliferous ores and metal scrap — comprising iron ore, alumina and copper — rose by 18.8% in the quarter. The rise in prices follows a quarterly increase of 12.% in the December quarter, which was the fastest rise since 2010. The 29.1% annual increase was driven by a 51.3% increase in Metalliferous ores and metal scrap over the 12 months to the end of March — the largest annual rise since the end of March.
