The Construction Costs Index of the A.C. of the Basque Country registered a 0.1% increase in February 2005 with regard to the previous month, by which the inter-annual rate for the month came to 6.8%, according to EUSTAT data.

Labour costs did not vary at all (0.0%) in February 2005 while raw material costs increased by 0.2%.

The subsectors Building and Civil Works evolved differently, with 0.1% growth in relation to the previous month for Building and 0.3% for raw material costs of Civil Works. In the inter-annual evolution of these subsectors confirmed that the trend for both is similar: raw material costs of Building grew 8.2%, while raw materials costs of Civil Works accumulated 8.1% growth.

In February the highest growth of prices corresponded to the raw materials consumed by Asphalt Products (3.7%), Oil by products (2.8%) and Lime, gypsum and plaster (2.2%), among others. On the other hand, there was a reduction in the prices of Office Material (-3.5%), Electric energy (-1.7%), Oil and greases (-1.1%), Glass (-0.6%), Iron and steel (-0.3%) and Mining Arids (-0.2%), among others.

Among the prices of raw materials consumed by the sector that grew most over the whole of the twelve months were: Metallic piping (41.4%), Iron and steel (33.6%), Asphalt products (29.9%) and Oil by products (21.5%). In contrast, reductions in inter-annual prices (February 2005 on February 2004) corresponded to the raw materials of Glass (-4.9%), Office material (-3.4%), Electric energy (-2.7%) and Timber and cork (-0.5%).