The rise in the prices of construction inputs has not ceased, at least until December 2022.
(See: ‘The dollar goes down, but some construction supplies don’t’).
For this period, the National Administrative Department of Statistics (Dane) analyzed, as every month, the Building Construction Cost Index (Icoced), where an annual growth in construction costs of 9.95% was evidenced.
This figure is the highest recorded in 2022, leveraged above all by the price of the lowest and most notorious tool in the city of Bogotá, where the rise was 10.06%.
By cost group, although tools top the list, it is followed by the rise in the price of general construction services, which registers an increase of 15.8% in December 2022 compared to the same period in 2021. Followed by this figure, the rise in materials (9.4%), machinery (8.7%), equipment (5.9%) and labor (5.6%).
(See: Holcim inaugurates a chemical products plant for the construction sector).
By materials, it stands out for building builders, the growth that prices have had in special equipment for electrical activities (29.2%), followed by waterproofing (23.3%), plaster (17.7%), glass (11.9%) and cement (12.7%).
It is noteworthy that close to half of the costs evaluated by Dane (20 of 54 categories) present increases greater than double digits in December and only one had a negative variation (transportation of fluid materials with -0.6%).
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About civil works, the subclass with the highest increase was the construction of outdoor sports spaces and other civil engineering works with an increase of 11.09%, followed by construction of pipelines for long-distance gas conduction and communication lines with a variation of 10.6% and in third place is the class of ports, canals, dams, irrigation systems and other hydraulic works (aqueduct) with a rise of 10.03%.
(See: Infrastructure in Colombia, in trouble due to high costs).
For road builders (roads, streets, runways, bridges and elevated highways) the increase in costs reached 9.27% as of December 2022 compared to the same period in 2021. Airstrips was the one that rose the most with 11.23%.
However, by type of work, urban gas networks rose 13.86%, drinking water treatment plants 16.6%, airport infrastructure 11.23%, construction of mass transportation infrastructure 11.45% and space public 12.75%.
These construction projects have had these variations mostly due to the rise in activities such as construction of concrete structures (12.1%), signaling and traffic control for mass transit bike paths (16.4%), geotechnical works, environmental mitigation, hydraulic structures and drainage (10.1%) and asphalt and/or concrete pavements with 13.6%.
(See: Sales of new housing in Colombia would fall sharply).
The costs of these works were marked by the rise in steel, concrete, cement and asphalt.
PAULA GALEANO BALAGUERA
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