The construction industry in Europe has marked another month of general retreat, both on annual and monthly basis, Bulgarian daily Dnevnik reported on November 19 2009, citing Eurostat statistics.

The only marginal improvement observed in the construction sector, which became one of the industries that was hardest hit by the global economic downturn, was infrastructure construction. Real estate on the other hand suffered a substantial decline on all fronts. The overall slump in the European Union for September was 9.4 per cent, Dnvenik said.

Over the course of a year, from one of the leaders in Europe in new construction, Bulgaria became one of the countries currently quagmired at the bottom of the table and was now amongst the three worst hit countries, along with Romania and Slovenia. This company of three were in the top five in Europe just 12 months ago, now they occupy the last three positions.

New construction in Bulgaria shrank in September by 19.7 per cent year-on-year, the third largest decline registered in the EU in that month. Over the same period in 2008, Bulgaria had seen a 17.7 per cent growth in the sector. Similar negative trends were seen in Romania, where the construction industry has been hard hit in the last months, Dnevnik said.

The real estate sector across Europe became an inevitable casualty of the global crunch, with the Spanish real estate market as its first major victim. By the third quarter of 2009, however, Spain was showing the first sights of recovery, and in September 2009, the country was amongst the only four countries in the block that saw a grown in construction business compared to August of the same year. One of the remaining obstacles for the Spanish real estate market, and its economy as a whole, was the country's unemployment levels, which were still among Europe's highest.

Souce: The Sofia Echo