The volume of construction works in Romania contracted by 2.5% y/y in July, after the sector posted a marginal 0.2% y/y advance in Q2, according to data published by the statistics office INS.

In seasonally-adjusted terms, the sector posted a moderate 1.0% y/y advance, which was rather a statistical effect of the workday adjustment since each of the three segments of the market contracted marginally.

In the entire H1, the construction work volume was 2.8% smaller compared to the same period in 2023.

The decline was driven in July by the residential segment (-23.5% y/y), which had performed particularly poorly over the past year and declined by 22.0% y/y in H1 as well.

The non-residential segment posted a moderate negative performance (-1.% y/y) in line with the 2.4% y/y contraction seen in H1.

The volume of civil engineering works remained robust (+5.2% y/y) as it was in H1 as well (+7.4% y/y), but it couldn’t alone offset the gloomy performance in both other segments of the market.

The volume of construction works in new projects, an indicator of further performance of the sector, remained in the negative area (-1.2% y/y) in July after the -2.4% y/y decline in H1.

iulian@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Yury Sevryuk/Dreamstime.com)