Italian market continues to recover

The Italian construction market continued its moderate recovery in the first quarter of 2016, despite a “slight contraction” in construction investments, according to Samoter Outlook’s Construction Industry Report (June 2016).

It said that growth was driven by increasing domestic demand, while further growth was expected in the coming quarters.

However, it reported that after two consecutive quarters of expansion, construction investments were marginally down, but insisted that this was a temporary setback.

Samoter said that it expected public investments to rise 2% year-on-year in 2016, driven by a recovery in the civil engineering sector, while an increase of 1% was expected in the residential sector.

A rise of 2.1% in the non-residential sector is also expected.