Basque building costs went up by 0,1 percent in March 2008

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Basque building costs went up by 0,1 percent in March 2008. Photo: EFE

The Building Costs index in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country registered an increase of 0,1 percent in March 2008 with respect to the previous month, as a consequence of which the inter-annual rate for that month reaches 6%, according to data facilitated by EUSTAT, the Basque Statistics Office.

In the month of March 2008, labour costs did not vary at all (0.0 percent) whereas raw materials costs registered an increase of 0.2 percent.

The Building and Civil Works subsectors registered a similar evolution, with a growth of 0.2 percent in Building costs over the previous month, whereas in the Civil Works subsector raw material costs increased by 0.1 percent. In the interannual evolution of those two subsectors it was observed that both registered increases albeit with different intensities: raw materials costs in Building grew by 5.7 percent, whereas Civil Works raw materials accumulated an increase of 6.5 percent.

In the month of March, the highest price increases took place in the following raw materials used: Electronic material (1.8 percent), Metallurgy (1.1 percent) and Furniture manufacture (1.1 percent). On the other hand, a reduction in prices was observed in Electric power and gas (-2.5 percent), and non-metal industry (-0.8 percent).

Among the prices of raw materials used by the sector that experienced the highest rates of inflation throughout the last twelve months are: Electric power and gas (14.6 percent), Non-metal minerals (11.9 percent) Water (10.9 percent) and Petrol refining (10.2 percent). On the other hand, interannual price decreases or lesser increases (March 2008 compared to March 2007) were observed in raw materials related to Electronic material (-2.2 percent) and Metallurgy (0.2 percent).