ECONOMY

Construction Spending Up in ‘93: Rising an unexpected 2.6% in December, construction spending finished the year with a 7.9% gain, the Commerce Department said. Economists said they expect the advance--which most had predicted would be only 1.5% in December--to carry over into 1994. They noted that even the depressed office and industrial building sector appears to be rebounding. The Commerce Department reported that residential, non-residential and government spending on construction totaled a record $470.3 billion in 1993, up from $436 billion in 1992.