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Press Release 16/03/2016

CONSTRUCTION INDEX, IV/2015

The Construction sector in the Basque Country fell by 1.1% in the fourth quarter of 2015

There was a 1.4% upturn in Building over 2015 as a whole, following seven years of negative rates

Construction activity in the Basque Country registered a year-on-year nominal downturn of 1.1% in the fourth quarter of 2015, in homogeneous terms of the working calendar, according to EUSTAT data.

Once corrected for seasonal effects, the Construction sector was down by 0.2% in the fourth quarter of 2015 compared to the third quarter of the same year.

The downturn in the Construction sector in this quarter was due to the negative performance of the Civil Works subsector, which registered a year-on-year drop of 12.9%, since the Building subsector posted a rise of 1.3%.

In quarter-on-quarter terms, if the activity of the sector in the fourth quarter of 2015 is compared to the previous quarter, the Building subsector had a negative evolution of 1.1%, whereas the Civil Works subsector posted an increase of 5.3%.

Employment in the Construction sector experienced a decrease of 0.7% in the fourth quarter of 2015 compared to the third quarter of 2015.

Table 1: Construction index, Basque Country. Variation Rates (%). IV/2015
Source: Eustat. Construction index

Annual balance

In 2015 overall, the Construction Index posted a fall of 0.4% with regards to the previous year, but with very different results in its two sub-sectors: Building rose by 1.4% after seven years of negative rates, whereas Civil Works once again saw negative rates, with a drop of 9.8% compared to 2014, after the increase of 7.1% posted that year.

Table 2: Construction index, Basque Country. 2015. Variation Rates (%). Provisional data
Source: Eustat. Construction index