The construction sector showed a slight increase in March (1.9%) compared to March 2008 after filing down nearly 3% in January and February. It is important to note that March 2008 was not a good month in the excellent first quarter. When we analyze the behavior of the accumulated in the first quarter, despite the March performance, it was negative by 1.2%. Apart from the annual analysis, and focusing on what happens in the month to month, seasonally adjusted activity in March was 4.4% lower than that observed in February. For its part, the trend indicator continues to show declines, in this case by 6.6% year, the highest since 2002. In the analysis by block, in March surprisingly, with the exception of oil buildings all had a positive growth.
The two best performance were the road works (+7.7%) and housing (6.1%). Clearly the process of an election year and strong push for public works can be seen on this information. Also, the accrued first quarter these two sectors are the only ones to grow and this is explained by the poor performance of public works in the first part of 2008. A positive note after two months of levels of building permits recorded in a list of 42 municipalities under the 600 thousand square meters in the month of March saw a slight upturn and the record is located in the 658,000 meters square. This level is below the average of 800 thousand square meters in 2008 but higher than 5% last March. Also positive is the increase in cement deliveries rose from 10.8% in February and against the same month of previous year by 6.5%. To close the analysis is important to see what are the expectations of entrepreneurs in the sector. It is noted that those who are principally engaged in public work for the election year had high expectations, they are fading by the end of the fiscal problems is having the national government and doubts about how post-election monitor implementation. In February, 18.9% expected an increase future of the business while only 3.6% in March.