According to data made available by Eustat the Construction Cost Index in the A.C. of the Basque Industry registered an increase of 0.4% in the month of July 2006 compared to the previous month, nudging the inter-annual rate for July up to 5.0%. The increase since December stands at 4.9%.

Changes in the inter-annual rate, 1997-2006

(*) Corresponds to July inter-annual rate

Source: EUSTAT

In July 2006 labour costs did not change at all (0.0%), while the cost of raw materials registered an increase of 0.6%.

The subsectors of Building and Civil Works registered quite similar changes with an increase of 0.6% on the previous month in Building and 0.7% in the cost of raw materials for Civil Works. The inter-annual data for these two subsectors reveal that both followed similar paths: raw material costs in the Building sector rose by 5.0%, while raw materials for Civil Works registered an increase of 4.7%.

Featuring amongst the highest price rises for raw materials used in July were Asphalt products (6.1%), Electric Energy (3.6%), Oil by-products (2.5%) and Iron and Steel (1.6%). On the other hand, there were price falls in raw materials for Glass (-0.8%), Mining Arids (-0.2%), Artificial Cement (-0.2%) and Hand tools (-0.1%).

Among those raw material prices used in construction which have undergone the highest rates of inflation over the last twelve months are: Electric energy (22.9%), Asphalt products (18.5%), Oil by-products (12.3%), Iron and steel (13.2%) and Explosives and gases (7.3%). On the other hand, there were price falls or low increases in the inter-annual prices (July 2006 on July 2005) of the raw materials used in Ceramic products (-0.1%), Stone masonry (0.0%), Wood and cork (0.7%) and Paint and varnish (0.8%).

Construction costs index A.C. of Euskadi / Data summary. July 2006

Source: EUSTAT