The Construction Costs Index in the A.C. of the Basque Country registered a 0.2% increase in April 2005 with regard to the previous month, by which the inter-annual rate for the month came to 5.9%, according to EUSTAT data.

In April 2005 labour costs did not vary at all (0.0%), while raw material costs increased by 0.2%.

The subsectors Building and Civil Works registered a similar evolution, with a 0.2% increase on the previous month in the Building sector, and a 0.3% rise in the cost of raw materials for Civil Works. In the inter-annual evolution of these two subsectors we can confirm that both follow similar trends: raw material costs for Building rose 6.9% and for Civil Works increased 6.7%.

In April the highest growth in prices occurred for raw materials consumed by Explosives and gases (6.3%), Asphalt Products (3.7%), Cleaning and hygiene material (3.4%), Oil by-products (3.2%) and Hardware articles (2.0%), among others. On the other hand, there was a reduction in raw material prices for Electric energy (-7.8%), Structures and boilers (-1.0%), Plastic piping. Thermal insulation (-0.7%) and Iron and steel (-0.5%).

Among the raw material prices consumed by the sector that underwent higher inflation rates over the whole of the last twelve months are: Asphalt products (24.9%), Metal piping (24.3%), Oil by-products (24.2%) and Iron and steel (21.0%). In addition, there were reductions in inter-annual prices (April 2005 on April 2004) of raw materials for Glass (-3.9%), Electric energy (-1.7%) and Office material (-1.5%).