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Construction decline threatens CV market
Page 16
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• The commercial vehicle industry's biggest customer, the building and civil engineering sector, has peaked and is now set for a sharp decline. According to Associated Building Industries, a leading market analysis company which monitors construction contracts, many developers are postponing work on new schemes because of the LIK's uncertain economic future.
ABI says: "We normally expect an increase at this time of the year in tender documents being sent by developers to construction companies so that contracts can be placed and work can get underway before the end of the financial year. This does not seem to be happening."
Construction contracts worth more than £10 million are becoming increasingly scarce. AIM measured a 17% fall in them during the third quarter of this year, compared with the booming autumn of 1988. However, the big contractors have enough work for the next 12 months. By then, the industry hopes interest rates will have fallen and the multimillion-pound spending programmes confirmed this week on motorway and trunk-road building will perhaps have helped underpin a recovery.
Approximately 25% of the HGV chassis sold in the 1..;K go to work in the building and civil engineering sector.
Li Toolmakers and small component suppliers also report an increasing downturn in business. Many companies are now shelving the purchase of new production equipment says Malcolm Taylor, managing director of the country's biggest machine toolmaker Bridgeport. "The home market has gone very soft," he says. "Next year will be tough."