The General Index of Construction Costs of the A.C. of the Basque Country grew by 0.1% in August 2002, according to Eustat data. The inter-annual variation, August 2002 with regard to August 2001, sets this increase at 2.2% and the rate for the first eight months of the year in comparison with last December shows a 2.8% increase.
In August, raw materials costs increased by 0.2%, while labour costs remained stable. However, over the inter-annual period, labour costs increased 4.0% compared with a 1.0% increase in raw materials.
The subsectors "Building" and "Civil Works" developed differently in the month of
August, with higher growth in raw materials costs for the "Civil Works" subsector, 0.4%, while the costs of "Building" increased just 0.1%. These differences were also evident on analysing the inter-annual evolution, with a rate of 0.8% in comparison with August 2001, for "Building" and 1.3% for "Civil Works".
Among the prices of raw materials consumed by the sector that increased most in August 2002 were: "Electric energy" (4.8%), "Lime, gypsum and plaster" (3,0%) and "Oil by-products" (2.8%), among others.
The inter-annual evolution of prices gives the most significant increases in the costs of the following products consumed: "Artificial cement" (7.0%), "Accessories for used machinery" (6.1%), "Other metal articles" (4.5%) and "Articles derived from cement" (2.4%), among others.