The production of construction materials increased by 8.6% at national level in the first three months of this year compared to the same period in 2012 according to the information provided by the National Statistics Institute (INS) confirmed as well by the Association of Construction Material Producers from Romania (APMCR). It is important to underline the advance of the industry in March this year. During this time, the increase reached over 11% in comparison with the similar interval in 2012 and has exceeded 36% while compared to February 2013. The local market of construction materials has an annual value of 3.3 billion EUR. The production prices remained at the level registered during past year, with small fluctuations (maximum 1%) recorded in March 2013 as compared to the same period in 2012. However, there were types of materials, especially from the coarse category whose production prices increased significantly during this period, such as concrete (+15.3%), lime/plaster (+8%), cement (6.7%) or mortar (+5.8%). At the end of the first quarter, 346.100 employees worked in the construction industry, over 35.400 people being recorded in the sector of material production. However, according to the data provided by INS, the average income in the construction market is 1.738 RON/month, while in the materials sector an employee earns on average 1.812 RON/month. Exports made by Romania in the first two months of this year exceeded 7.57 billion EUR, while total imports made by our country in this period stood at over 8 billion EUR, according to the latest data of the National Statistics Institute. In what concerns the external trade with construction products, the total value of exports for cement, lime and plaster was 8.1 million EUR, while the ceramic products reached a value of 20.5 million EUR and the total amount of other materials shipped abroad amounted to 50.2 million EUR. In terms of imports, these stood above exports in terms of value. Thus, there were recorded imports of cement, lime and plaster worth 12.6 million EUR, ceramic products with a value of 24.2 million EUR and other building materials, which totalled 91.5 million EUR. One can easily see that a significant part of trade operations aims at ceramics. For further information and a detailed analysis of the current Agenda Constructiilor issue click here!