High speed train routes through – or rather under – the Alps continue to rank among Europe’s most ambitious projects. Pictured is the work to assemble a tunnel boring machine (TBM), which will be used to drive one of the anciliary bores on the 55 km Brenner Base Tunnel project.
European construction
back to growth After many difficult years in the wake of the global economic crisis, the European construction market has started to see growth. As ever in Europe, there are areas of weakness offset by genuine hotspots – most notably Germany.
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ccording to the Construction Industry Federation (FIEC), construction output in Europe came to €1241 billion in 2015. With growth put at a little over 2 per cent, that should have taken the market to around €1265 in 2016 and on up to around €1290 this year. Those are impressive figures, but the fact remains that investment in construction is still more than 10 per cent lower than it was ten years ago in the pre-crisis era. Construction’s share of GDP is now only around 8.5 per cent, compared to the previous benchmark of 10 per cent of GDP, which was something of a rule of thumb in the late 1990s and early 2000s. But there is scope in the current climate for the construction sector to bring about 6 Industry Europe
Southern European markets may be weak, but there are still impressive projects underway. Pictured is the construction of the €410 million Venda Nova III pumped storage hydroelectric project in Portugal.
