Rise in January orders

UK construction orders were higher in January than at the end of last year according to new Government figures out this week - although figures for the last three months still show a drop.

The figures give the industry a welcome hint of good news and show that all non-housing sectors showed large increases in orders over figures for December. Infrastructure in particular picked up as the Highways Agency begins to let projects after some months of virtual stagnation.

At current prices the total value of new orders in January was œ1,813 million.

But the Department of the Environment, which compiles the figures, warned: 'It is too early to be certain whether the decline in order levels seen during late 1994 will be reversed in 1995.'

Despite the improvement, when the last three months' orders are compared with the previous three months they still show an 11% drop and a dramatic 25% drop against the same period last year.

Infrastructure orders fared much better in the latest three months than the previous quarter, marking a 30% rise. But disturbingly the figure is still 47% lower than in the same period last year.

Public and private housing orders continued their steady drop while other sectors - including private industrial and commercial - showed month on month improvements despite lagging well behind their levels of a year ago.

n DoE figures out this week also show construction output up by 3% for the whole of 1994 against 1993 with all sectors except infrastructure showing improvement. The industry now employs 1.4 million people - 800,000 employees and 600,000 self-employed - unchanged on last year.