Malta only EU country where construction did not contract in 2020

According to a report by the EU statistics arm, Eurostat, Malta was the only country in the EU to record four consecutive quarters of construction production growth in 2020. 

The report, which collates data on nation's quarterly production in construction, shows that Malta was an outlier in a year decimated by COVID, as its construction industry was the only one in the EU that didn't contract in a single quarter of 2020.

The statistics show that growth in the construction industry dipped in Q2 2020, as the pandemic began to take hold, recording a quarterly growth of only 0.2 per cent. 

In the next two quarters, growth in the industry largely bounced back, to grow 1.3 per cent in Q3 and two per cent in Q4.

By the fourth quarter of the year, Malta’s production in construction was up 5.7 per cent compared to the same quarter a year before.

This is the fourth-highest growth recorded in any EU country’s construction industry from Q4 2019 to Q4 2020, with only Germany (5.8 per cent), Slovenia (6.1 per cent) and Romania (12.6 per cent) recording larger increases.

Across the EU, production in the construction industry fell by 0.9 per cent in Q4 2020 when compared to the same quarter in 2019. 

The relative strength of the construction industry in Malta, however, may not be as stable as the statistics suggest.

In March, the Malta Developers Association told BusinessNow.mt, that, in the wake of stalling immigration numbers to Malta, the industry could not function normally without foreign workers, as “certain industry skills are not available locally”. 

Also notable is that Malta’s construction industry is the country's lowest-paying sector, a phenomenon that is not found in any other EU country.