Between April and June, business confidence in the construction sector continued to fall for the sixth consecutive quarter, and the respective balance remained below the average of the respective time series.
Data recently published by the National Statistics Institute (INE) explains that the unfavourable assessment of confidence was influenced by the drop in all the components of the sector’s summary indicator, with greater emphasis on the order book, as well as the outlook for turnover, which fell substantially over the period in question.
“The unfavourable situation of confidence in the sector extended to current activity, which also occurred in a context of stabilisation of future prices,” the INE website said.
In terms of challenges in the construction sector, the statistical authority noted that around 46% of companies experienced some limitation in the normal performance of their business during the quarter, which represented an 8% increase in companies in difficulty compared to the previous quarter.
According to INE, the main obstacles in the sector continued to be low demand (40%), lack of access to credit (12%), weather conditions (11%) and other unspecified factors (24%), in order of importance.
