Construction index costs in the A.C. of the Basque Country registered a 0.3% increase in August 2006 with regard to the previous month, by which the inter-annual rate for the month came to 5.3%, according to EUSTAT data. The increase in relation to the previous December was also 5.3%.

Changes in the inter-annual rate, 1997-2006

(*) Corresponds to August inter-annual rate

Source: EUSTAT

In August 2006 labour costs did not vary at all (0.0%), while raw material costs increased by 0.45%.

The subsectors Building and Civil Works registered differing evolutions, with 0.5% growth in relation to the previous month for Building and 0.2% in raw material costs for Civil Works. The inter-annual evolution of these two subsectors shows that they followed differing trends: raw material costs for Building grew by 5.4%, while raw materials for Civil Works increased by 4.7%.

In August the highest growth in prices corresponded to raw materials consumed by Electric energy (5.4%), Asphalt products (4.7%), Glass (2.5%) and Iron and steel (1.7%), among others. On the other hand, prices of raw materials fell for Oil by-products (-2.3%), Mining arids (-0.2%), Structures and boilermaking (0.1%) and Manual Tools (-0.1%), among others.

Among the prices of raw materials consumed by the sector that have risen most in price over the whole of the last twelve months are Electric energy (21.6%), Asphalt products (18.5%), Iron and steel (16.6%), Glass (8.9%) Oil and greases (6.3%), and Oil by-products (5.6%). In addition there were reductions or lower increases in inter-annual prices of (August 2006 on August 2005) for the raw materials Ceramic products (-0.1%) and Worked stone (0.0%), Timber and cork (0.9%) Electric material and appliances (1.0%) and Paint and varnishes (1.1%).

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

Source: EUSTAT