Promising signs

The construction volume in Europe is expected to grow to an estimated € 1.52 thousand billion by 2010. This emerges from the latest forecast of the research and consultative institutes from 15 west and four central European countries which are linked in the Euroconstruct Group. The forecast suggests that growth will be driven especially by civil engineering (3.5 per cent per year) and non-residential building construction (2.5 per cent per year). House building, by contrast, is expected to remain more at less at a standstill when averaged out over all the Euroconstruct countries during the 2008 to 2010 period affected by the forecast. Nevertheless, with a total of around € 685 bn 2006 it still represented by far the major share of the three divisions of the building and construction industry, followed by non-residential building (€ 440 bn) and civil engineering (€ 295 bn).