Construction (Germany):
High equipment utilisation rate

In construction, the current business situation was assessed as just as "good" as in the previous month. A slight improvement in civil engineering was offset by a weakening in structural engineering. With buoyant construction activity, equipment utilisation increased, and at 72% was 9 percentage points higher than one year ago. In the range of order backlogs there was no change (2.5 production months); at the same time of the previous year it was 0.2 months smaller. In civil engineering the dissatisfaction with order reserves increased again, however. The six-month outlook brightened perceptibly in the estimation of the survey participants, both for structural and for civil engineering. They also expect price increases to continue. Staff reductions are planned by only 5% of the firms, on balance, as compared with 25% a year ago Also for eastern German contractors, the current business situation remained unchanged; as in the west it improved slightly in civil engineering and fell somewhat in structural engineering. At a 75% equipment utilisation rate, the previous-year level was surpassed by 7%. In contrast, the range of order backlogs decreased in the past one-year period by 0.2 months to 1.9 production months. The expectations again improved clearly, especially for commercial construction. As their colleagues in the west, eastern German contractors see scope for further price increases.