Developing a price index for school projects in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The objective of this research is to develop a specialized construction price index that reflects the change in the price of school buildings in Saudi Arabia. This study was limited to school projects which are built for the MOE in Saudi Arabia. Elementary, intermediate and secondary school projects were considered in this study. The geographic coverage was limited to the main educational areas in Saudi Arabia, namely: Riyadh, Jeddah, and Eastern Province. Data was collected from the MOE in Riyadh for 114 school projects selected randomly. In this research, there are 36 items that have been selected from the common models as being representative in cost and regularly used. The item weights have been considered as the average of the base year quantities in the three areas. The year 1990 has been taken as the base year for the RSPPI and SPPI. The Laspeyres method has been used to calculate the RSPPI and the SPPI. The quantities and prices of 36 items of RSPPI and the SPPI were extracted from the BOQ's of the 114 projects. This data has then been used to develop the RSPPI and the SPPI. Four indexes are developed in this research namely: the RSPPI for Riyadh, the RSPPI for Jeddah, the RSPPI for Eastern Province and the SPPI for Saudi Arabia.