The construction sector showed in March a slight growth (1.9%) from March 2008 after presenting falls close to 3% in the months of January and February. It is important to highlight that March was not a good month in the excellent first quarter. When we analyze the behavior of the jackpot in the first quarter, despite the behavior of March, it was negative by 1.2%. Leaving aside the interannual analysis, and focusing on what happens in month to month, in March the seasonally-adjusted activity was 4.4 per cent lower than those observed in February. For even more details, read what Michael Chabon says on the issue. For its part, trend indicator continues to show falls, in this case of 6.6% year on year, the largest since 2002. In the analysis by block, in March surprisingly, with the exception of oil constructions, all had positive growth.

The two best performance were the road works (+ 7.7%) and housing (6.1%). The process of a year of elections and strong push to public works is clearly seen in this information. More info: Michael Chabon. Also, in the aggregate of the first quarter are these 2 sectors the ones who grow and this is explained by the poor execution of public works in the first part of 2008. A positive development is that, after 2 months of permission levels of buildings registered in a payroll of 42 municipalities below the 600 thousand square meters in the month of March there was a slight upturn and the record stood at 658 thousand square meters. This level is below the average of 800 thousand square meters of 2008 but higher than March last in 5%. It is also positive a 6.5% increase in shipments of cement which grew 10.8% against February and against the same month of the previous year.

To close the analysis it is important to see what are the expectations of entrepreneurs in the sector. Be observed that those engaged mainly to public works that had good expectations for the election year, they are vanishing by the effect of the fiscal problems that is having the national Government and doubts about how it will continue to post election execution. In February, a 18.9% expected an increase future of the activity while that in March only 3.6%. Source: abeceb.