Construction (west):
Still no recovery of construction activity in sight

In western German construction the business situation deteriorated as a result of the clearly more negative assessments in building construction, in particular in residential construction. With declining building activity, equipment utilisation decreased; at 59% it matched the previous-year level. The extent of order backlogs was reduced to 2.3 months and thus fell below the previous-year level (2.5 months). Correspondingly, more firms complained about inadequate order reserves (62% of the enterprises). However, the survey participants were less sceptical regarding future business than in the previous month.