Construction Growth Grinds Down to 2% in Q1
Newly released data show that construction volumes grew only 2 percent year on year in the first quarter, a far cry from the 19 percent growth of 2012.
The slowdown itself, which was cited as a main factor in Estonia's GDP growth coming in at a less-than-expected 1 percent last quarter, is no news, but today's information from Statistics Estonia shows its extent.
During the quarter, the production value of Estonia's construction enterprises amounted to 380 million euros, of which building construction accounted for 240 million euros and civil engineering 140 million euros.
Compared with the same quarter of 2012, the volume of building construction in real terms decreased 3 percent, but the volume of civil engineering increased by a tenth, Statistics Estonia said.
The major contributor to the sector's relatively slow performance, according to earlier comments by analysts, was that the end of 2012 marked the deadline for most construction and investment projects that received funding from the government's sale of leftover CO2 quotas.
Industry insiders had said earlier that they expect sluggish growth for the remainder of 2013 at least.
In April, uudised.err.ee reported that Andres Trink, CEO of Merko, one of the biggest builders in the Baltics, said that the Baltic construction market is not projected to see much additional growth in the next few years.