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Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - Strongly growing business in residential construction saved the balance sheet for the south-west construction industry last year.

Revenue increases in this area would have offset corona-related declines, especially in commercial construction, said the president of the Baden-Württemberg construction industry association, Markus Böll, on Thursday in Stuttgart.

"The housing party continues," he stated.

The bottom line is that the industry achieved an increase in sales of around 2 percent to around 14.2 billion euros in 2020.

The medium-term outlook is not rosy, however.

Because incoming orders, an important indicator for business in the future, collapsed - on average by a good 10 percent.

While the residential construction sector posted a year-on-year increase in orders of 11.2 percent up to November, demand in other areas fell - in commercial construction by as much as 20.4 percent.

Because of the Corona crisis, industry, commercial investors and service providers have "massively cut back" their investments, the association complained.

No improvement is expected in 2021 either.

In the worst case, the south-west construction industry expects an overall decline in sales of around 2 percent for the current year.

Because the order total for public tenders fell by 6.7 percent year-on-year up to November, and in road construction by more than 10 percent.

Böll said that this also had to do with a backlog of tenders in the administrations of the state and local authorities.

Many of the clerks there were obviously sent to the home office unprepared and could no longer process tenders quickly and efficiently - for example because of technical problems.

For these reasons, the number of public tenders has fallen by up to 50 percent, depending on the area and region.

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In the previous year, the industry registered a slight increase in sales in the public sector compared to the previous year.

There was a moderate decline in commercial construction, and in residential construction - not quite as significant in terms of sales total - an increase of 12.2 percent by November.

© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210128-99-205588 / 2

Information about the industry association