Mubasher: The US Census Bureau, the US Department of Housing, the Urban Development on Friday jointly published residential construction statistics for last April.

Privately-owned housing starts reached a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.235 million starts in April, which is 5.7% higher than the revised March estimate of 1.168 million, but 2.5% below the rate of 1.267 million seen in the same month of the prior year, according to the official figures.

Privately-owned housing units authorised under building permits inched up by 0.6% month-on-month to an adjusted annual rate of 1.296 million in April.

Privately-owned housing completions fell 1.4% to an adjusted annual rate of 1.312 million completions during the reported month, from the revised estimate of 1.331 million in the prior month, but 5.5% up from 1.244 million a year ago.

Permits for single-family housing units dropped month-on-month to 782,000 permits in April, while authorisations for five-or-more unit buildings recorded 467,000, the report showed.

Completed single-family housing units fell 4.1% to 918,000 units last April, compared with the preceding month when they totalled 957,000.

By 12:31 pm GMT, the US dollar index went up 0.04% to 97.60.