Depressed mood in Czech Republic

The BFAI, or German Federal Foreign Trade Agency, has observed a depressed mood in the Czech building materials trade. It is true that the overall construction industry has been recovering from the slump in building activity between 1997 and 1999, with price-adjusted growth of 9.6 per cent in building volume for the year 2001. However, the home-building sector, which is important to the distributive trade, has not been associated with this upswing. And in the public sector, as well as in commercial building projects, most manufacturers are supplying the construction companies directly.