The Construction Costs Index of the A.C. of the Basque Country increased by 2.3% in January 2006 with regard to the previous month, which meant the inter-annual rate for the month came to 3.0%, according to EUSTAT data.

In January 2006 labour costs increased by 4.0%, while raw material costs also increased by 1.6%.

The subsectors Building and Civil Works registered similar trends, with 1.6% growth with regard to the previous month for Building, and 1.4% for raw material costs of Civil Works. The inter-annual evolution of these two subsectors shows that they follow slightly different trends: raw material costs of Building grew by 2.4%, while raw material costs of Civil Works accumulated 2.9% growth.

In January the highest growth in prices corresponded to raw materials consumed by Artificial cement (4.8%), Electric energy (4.1%), Articles derived from cement (3.5%), Oil by-products (3.4%), Asphalt products (3.4%) and Mining Arids (2.7%), among others. By contrast, there was a reduction in the prices of faw materials for Paints and varnishes (-1.3%), Metal piping (-1.1%), Electric appliances and material (-0.9%), Plastic piping (-0.7%) and Cleaning and hygiene material (-0.5%), among others.

Among the prices of raw materials consumed by the sector that registered the highest inflation over the whole of the twelve months were: Asphalt products (39.7%), Oil by-products (29.2%), Worked stone (6.2%) and Baked earth (4.3%). In addition, there were reductions in inter-annual prices (January 2006 on January 2005) for the raw materials of Metal piping (-5.4%), Lime, gypsum and plaster (-1.1%), Plastic piping (-0.4%) and Electric appliances and material (-0.2%).