That followed a total drop of 9.8% in the preceding seven months. There was an increase in the price of nine commodities, three recorded a weaker price and five were unchanged.
The largest rise was in aluminium which lifted 6% over the month, while the next three largest increases were dairy products. Cheese prices firmed 5% while skim milk powder and butter prices increased 3%.
Dairy prices have oscillated at different times over the past few fortnightly auctions but, month-on-month, aggregate dairy prices have lifted 2% between December and January.
The largest decline was measured in wool prices which fell 7%. Wool prices have weakened in five of the past six months and are now 19% below the peak recorded in July last year.
As a base metal, aluminium prices tended to follow the trend set by other hard commodities, being more aligned to worldwide industrial production and global sentiment.
Not surprisingly, prices have slumped recently in response to uncertainty and weaker demand in the current gloomy economic environment, ANZ economist Steve Edwards said.
Aluminium has been a relatively recent addition to New Zealand's export basket, since smelting first began at Tiwai Point, near Bluff, in 1971.
In the 2011 calendar year, New Zealand's exports of aluminium totalled $1.2 billion, which represented 2.6% of the country's total export merchandise trade.
However, that raw alumina used to make aluminium is imported from Australia so, once that imported raw material was deducted, the net value was reduced to 1.9% of overall exports.
Last month, the Tiwai Point smelter produced the 10 millionth tonne of aluminium, which equated to 500 million kilometres of aluminium foil - enough to stretch to the moon and back 650 times.
New Zealand's production of aluminium was a little over 1% of total world-wide output.
Japan is the largest market, taking more than half the total, followed by Korea (10%) and Australia (8%).
Prices of dairy products sold on Fonterra's GlobalDairyTrade platform fell for the third time in four sales, with declines this week for all six product types on offer.
The GDT-TWI Price Index fell 0.9% from the last sale a fortnight ago. The average winning price across all products dropped to $US3,666 ($NZ4,400) per metric tonne.
The price of whole milk powder fell 0.9% to $US3533 ($NZ4241). Whole milk powder typically accounts for more than half the product sold on the platform.
A total of 28,011 metric tonnes of product was sold, down from 31,026 tonnes in the previous auction.
Skim milk powder fell 0.5%, anhydrous milk fat dropped 3.5% and cheddar declined 1.1%.
Milk protein concentrate fell 4.9% and rennet casein dropped 4.3%.
There were 118 winning bidders from a total 155 participants across 12 rounds at the latest sale. The number of qualified bidders increased to 558 from 533 at the last sale two weeks ago.
- Additional reporting BusinessDesk
