Construction in the European Union increased by 0.7% m/m in July

In July 2023, production in the construction sector of the European Union increased by 0.7% compared to the previous month. This is evidenced by Eurostat’s data.

Compared to July 2022, in July 2023, seasonally adjusted production in the EU construction industry increased by 0.9%.

Among the EU countries, the largest monthly decline in construction was recorded in Slovenia (-6.5% m/m), the Czech Republic (-3.7%) and Finland (-1.6%). The greatest growth was observed in Hungary (+8.4% m/m), Belgium (+2.9%) and Germany (+2.6%).

The construction of engineering structures in the EU increased by 0.8% m/m and 2.8% y/y, while the construction of buildings (residential and non-residential) decreased by 1.7% m/m and increased by 0.6% y/y.

As GMK Center reported earlier, in June 2023, the production of construction sector of the EU decreased by 0.6% compared to the same period in 2022. The construction of engineering structures in the EU decreased by 0.9% m/m and 1% y/y, while the construction of residential and non-residential buildings increased by 0.5% m/m and by 4.6% y/y.

Stagnation of the EU construction sector has a negative impact on demand and sentiment on the domestic market of long-term rolled steel. Since the end of 2020, construction in the European Union has been in a long period of recovery thanks to significant government support, which stimulated demand for steel products, but since the beginning of this year, as steelmakers noted, the European construction sector has suffered due to macroeconomic problems and uncertainty in the market.

According to Eurofer forecasts, in 2023 volumes of construction in the EU will decrease by a moderate 0.5% and recover to +0.7% in 2024. In 2022 volume of production in construction EU sector grew by 4.8%. In the fourth quarter, this indicator decreased by 0.2% year-on-year.