The Construction Costs Index in the A.C. of the Basque Country registered a 2.0% increase in January 2005 with regard to the previous month, by which the inter-annual rate for that month rose 6.8%, according to EUSTAT data.

In January 2005 labour costs increased by 4.0%, while raw material costs rose by 1.1%.

The subsectors Building and Civil Works registered a similar evolution, with 1.1% growth in relation to the previous month for Building and 1.2% for Civil Works raw materials costs. The inter-annual evolution of these two subsectors shows that both are following similar trends: raw material costs for Building rose by 8.2%, while raw material costs for Civil Works increased by 7.8%.

In January the highest growth in prices corresponded to raw materials consumed by Oil by products (4,8%), Mining arids (2.7%), Artificial Cement (2.6%), Iron and steel (2.3%) and Baked earth (1.8%), among others. On the other hand, prices fell for the raw materials used in Office material (-1.1%), Metal piping (-1.0%), Glass (-0.5%), Structures and Boilermaking (-0.4%) and Lime, gypsum and plaster (-0.1%).

Among the raw material prices consumed by the sector that registered the most inflationary rates over the whole of the last twelve months are: Metal piping (41.0%), Iron and steel (36.9%), Asphalt products (29.6%) and Oil by products (15.5%). By contrast, reductions in inter-annual prices (January 2005 in relation to January 2004), were recorded for the raw materials used by Glass (-3.6%), Lime, gypsum and plaster (-0.7%), Timber and cork (-0.2%) and Office Material (-0.1%).