The provisional figures for changes in tender prices for the fourth quarter of last year are now in. These show that tenders rase 4.5 in Britain compared with the final quarter of 2002. Building tender prices in much of the country have risen by more than four times the consumer prices index, the Treasury's new measure of consumer inflation. The increase seems to be demand-led, as the DTI's figures show that the volume of construction output in Great Britain in the first three quarters of 2003 was 3.8 higher than in the same period of 2002. At the end of last year, the DTI rebased its constant price construction output data to 2000 prices and, at the same time, revised a large number of figures, which changed the previously observed trends. In particular, it turns out that output growth of 8 in 2002 was in fact 4.8. The year-on-year increase for 2001 has been reduced from 3.5 to 2.7, but 2000 has been increased from 1.5 to 3.9. Overall, the increase in output between 1999 and 2002 is shown to have been 11.8, rather than 13.5 The revised data bears a stronger correlation with the increase in tender prices measured by Davis Langdon ft Everest's indices. For the calendar year 2000, the DLE Tender Price Index rose by 8.8, while in 2001, this slowed to 4.9. In 2002, when the figures now show that output rose 4.8, the DLE Tender Price Index rose 7.0.
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