Prague - Czech building industry experiences a year-to-year increase of 2 percent.

Construction offices produced 10,362 building permits which is a 16.2 percent increase against April 2007.

However, the estimated value of permitted projects is CZK 31.4 billion (1.24 billion euro), which is actually a year-to-year decrease of 4.2 percent.

Out of this amount, new buildings represent CZK 23.2 billion while the remaining CZK 8.2 billion is for modification of already completed buildings.

This data was released Thursday by the Czech Statistical Office.

Like in previous months, the construction industry growth was mainly due to reconstructions, modernizations, renovations, maintenance and other types of work.

Salaries up too

An average monthly salary of construction workers is CZK 23,039 (920 euro), which equals a year-to-year increase of 11.3 percent (with real wage growing by 4.2 percent).

Construction offices permitted building of 3,571 new flats which is 402 more than in April 2007 (increase of 12.7 percent). The total number of new flats is 3,027 (which is 294 more than last year).

The value of newly permitted flats is CZK 7.7 billion (308 million euro).