The Construction Costs Index of the A.C. of the Basque Country registered a 0.1% decrease in December 2004 with regard to the previous month, by which the inter-annual rate for the month came to 7.1%, according to EUSTAT data. The rate for the whole of 2004, therefore, registered a 7.1% increase in relation to December 2003.

Over the inter-annual period (December 2004 in relation to December 2003) labour costs increased 3.8%, while raw material costs rose by 8.7%.

The subsectors of Building and Civil Works have registered a somewhat different evolution in raw material costs, with a O.1% decrease for Building and a 0.4% fall in raw material costs for Civil Works with regard to the previous month. The inter-annual evolution of these two subsectors shows that they follow different trends: raw material costs for Building grew by 8.9%, while costs for Civil Works increased 7.8%.

Among the raw materials consumed by the sector that increased most in price over the whole of 2004 in relation to December the year before were: Metal piping (42.6%), Iron and Steel (37.1%), Asphalt products (29.6%) and Oil by-products (13.0%). On the other hand, reductions in annual prices (December 2004 in relation to December 2003) were registered by the raw materials for Glass (-2.9%), Electric energy (-1.5%), Electric equipment and material (-0.3%) and Wood and cork (-0.2).