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According to the latest Eurostat data, the indexes of the completed construction projects in EU continue to decrease.

Compared to Q1 of 2008, in the same quarter of this year there has been a 9.1% decrease in all of the 27 EU countries, while the “old’’ 16 EU countries note a decrease of 8.7%. The March monthly indexes continued to drop by 1% among old members, while the entire EU experienced a decrease by 2.7 %. Although Eurostat did not include Croatia’s statistics, if we compare it with Croatia’s data generated by the Central Bureau of Statistics (DZS), we notice that the Croatian construction industry has a slower drop in productivity than the EU average. By January this year the Croatian construction indexes grew, while the EU indexes already started dropping in July and August of 2008. In the first two months of this year, the Croatian index dropped by 3.7% in comparison to 2008. In spite of the crisis, the Croatian construction companies continue to submit requests for new permits. In Q1 of 2009, their number grew by 38%, while the forecast value of the projects was 6,9 million kunas. Although the Croatian construction industry is more flexible, experts warn that we should not rely on this false statistical sense of safety.