The Construction Costs Index in the A.C. of the Basque Country registered a 0.1% increase in June 2004 with regard to the previous month, by which the inter-annual for this month came to 5.5%, according to EUSTAT data.

In June 2004 the cost of labour did not vary at all (0.0%), while raw material costs registered a 0.2% increase.

The sub sectors of Building and Civil Works have registered a very similar evolution, with 0.2% growth for Building in relation to the previous month and a 0.1% increase for Civil Works raw materials, i.e. point ten percent more. The inter-annual evolution for these sub sectors shows, with reference to raw materials consumed, that both also follow homogeneous trends: raw materials costs for Building and Civil Works grew 6.2% and 6.3%, respectively.

In June the highest growth in prices corresponded to raw materials consumed by Metal Piping (4.0%), Accessories for Machinery Used (2.3%), Manual Tools (1.6%), Iron and Steel (1.3%) and Artificial Cement (1.2%). Prices fell, however, for the raw materials used by Oil By Products (-4.6%), Cleaning and hygiene (-2.3%), Explosives and gases (-1.7%) and Electric Energy (-1.6%), among others.

Among the raw materials consumed by the sectors that have registered higher inflationary rates over the last twelve months are: Metal Piping (35.4%), Iron and Steel (25.2%), Asphalt Products (15.5%), Oil By-Products (13.3%) and Articles Derived from Cement (7.4%), mainly. On the other hand, inter-annual prices fell (June 2004 in relation to June 2003) for raw materials used in Worked Stone (-7.2%), Glass (-3.9%), Electric Energy (-3.0%), Office Material (-2.5%) and Plastic Piping (-0.5%).