The coronavirus pandemic caused industrial output to drop 25.7 percent in May, marking only a small improvement over the 33.7 percent drop in April. However, construction output failed to improve, dropping 7.6 percent, year-on-year. “It’s a worse result than we had hoped for at the beginning of the crisis,” said Petr Smutny from PwC. “It shows that Czech industry is dependent on automobile production. We’re going to have to get used to these sorts of numbers in the coming months, though they should improve gradually. The fall in demand continues to be dramatic.” Automobile production has returned by about 50 percent, according to the Czech Statistics Office (CSU). The decline in construction output was 3 percent worse than in April, but this didn’t include work on transport infrastructure projects, which speeded up. The CSU reports that while larger contractors have been able to maintain output levels, smaller companies have struggled. Looking ahead, construction offices issued 2.8 percent fewer construction permits in May (7,625) than they did in May 2019. The number construction starts for homes rose 0.8 percent to 3,376 while completes jumped 15.3 percent to 2,943.
