That the country is construction-crazy is almost a given these days, but figures released by Eurostat, the EU’s statistical arm, yesterday show just how much.
According to the figures, production in construction in Malta has grown by a massive 41 per cent since 2015.
Malta’s growth in construction activity is, in fact, the fifth-highest in the whole of the European Union in seasonally and calendar-adjusted terms, and was only outstripped by Estonia (49 per cent), Ireland (51 per cent), Cyprus (94 per cent) and Hungary (57 per cent).
Such rates compare with the EU28 average of 12 per cent.
And, according to the figures, the construction business has also been gathering steam of late.
With the EU’s second-highest year-on-year growth (of 14 per cent) in the is year’s first quarter, only to be outdone by Slovenia’s 23 per cent growth.
Overall, in June 2019 compared with May 2019, seasonally adjusted production in the construction sector remained unchanged in the euro area (EA19) and decreased by 0.3% in the EU28.
In May 2019, production in construction decreased by 0.5% in the euro area and by 0.4% in the EU28.
In June 2019 compared with June 2018, production in construction increased by 1.0% in the euro area and by 0.6% in the EU28.
In the euro area in June 2019, compared with May 2019, civil engineering increased by 0.3% while building construction decreased by 0.5%.
In the EU28, civil engineering fell by 0.5% and building construction by 0.2%.
Among Member States for which data are available, the largest decreases in production in construction were recorded in Slovenia (-6.7%), Romania (-2.8%) and Portugal (-1.4%). The highest increases were observed in Hungary (+1.7%), France (+1.2%) and Czechia (+1.0%).
Malta is not obliged to provide monthly data and as such comparisons are not possible.
In the euro area in June 2019, compared with June 2018, building construction increased by 1.5% and civil engineering by 0.8%.
