THURSDAY 7th JULY 2011 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Small building companies in Wales suffered another decline in conditions during the second Quarter of 2011 according to the latest State of Trade Survey from the Federation of Master Builders (FMB), the largest trade association in the UK construction industry. This news comes despite the number of small building firms reporting improved conditions having more than doubled.
The Quarter two 2011 results for the FMB’s State of Trade Survey, the only survey of small and medium sized building companies, show that the Welsh SME construction sector has now seen over three years of declining conditions. However, conditions deteriorated at their slowest rate since the third quarter of 2010. The proportion of responses which were positive more than doubled to 28% in the second quarter of the year, but 34% were negative, unchanged from the first quarter of the year.
Richard Jenkins, Director of FMB Wales, said:
“At first glance this looks really encouraging but we have seen similar results in first and third quarters of last year and they were both immediately reversed by a return to significant levels of decline in the following quarter.”
Jenkins concluded
“While we hope that the next quarter will see further progress towards recovery, this will not happen without the right policies being in place and we will be working with the Welsh Assembly to ensure that they create the right business environment for growth and jobs in Wales.”
