Builders there boosted construction by 8.9percentt compared with December.
Britain could boost construction and ease the pressure on house prices by loosening planning rules.
If that, in turn, boosts construction employment, a vicious housing cycle could turn virtuous.
This helped to boost construction, which is growing at over 10% a year.
The housing market, an important engine of demand (because people have realised capital gains as they sold their houses, received cash as they refinanced their mortgages and boosted construction demand by building new houses), is still extraordinarily vigorous.
In its report, the Bank of Canada said that it was concerned that the high level of purchases by investors may have "boosted construction in the condominium market beyond demographic requirements," an analysis disputed by Urbanation and others.
An additional 223,000 households are expected to be formed each year over the next two decades as families fragment, people choose to dwell alone and old folk live longer.Mr Brown's drive to boost construction reflects widespread anxiety that as Britain's house-price boom continues into its second decade, more and more people are unable to get on to the housing ladder.
And, in a symbolic twist, Mr Valls has begun to unpick some of the dafter constraints of Ms Duflot's rent-control law, in order to boost construction".The last time we heard such a pro-business discourse was in 1995 under Alain Madelin," says Bruno Cavalier, an economist at Oddo Securities, referring to the Liberal finance minister during Jacques Chirac's first term as president.
In response to its findings, the CBI suggests five steps over the next 18 months to boost construction, including a call for an increase in capital allowances for the construction of infrastructure projects.
