According to the UK analyst of Euroconstruct, Harvir Dhillon, material shortages have plagued the construction industry over the past few months. In tandem with rising inflation, global construction activity has experienced a supply-side shock that looks set to persist well into 2022. Disruption in the supply chain has been driven by a number of factors, from the constrained capacity of sawmills and steel mills to environmental factors such as the forest fires seen in major timber exporters like the United States and Sweden, to name but a few.

According to the Czech analyst of Euroconstruct, David Frič, Czech construction certainly did not evade the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the industry fell by 3.6% in 2020 and is unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels in the next two years.

According to the new forecast presented by WIFO, the Austrian partner of the Euroconstruct network, construction in the Euroconstruct area is set to register a 3.8% growth this year. Yet, Hungary still awaits negative growth rates this year, although the drop in 2021 is foreseen to be lower than last year.

Unusually, due to the current situation, Euroconstruct has issued an interim forecast which is a revision of the June construction market forecast. The results have been summarised by János Gáspár, head of Euroconstruct's Hungarian research institute, Buildecon.

The European construction industry will be hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis, according to Euroconstruct's latest forecast for 19 European member states.