EIC 2015 Statistics: International revenue new peak

13 October 2016

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A new survey of contractors has shown their international revenue rising to almost € 180 billion (US$ 198 billion), up 9% compared with 2014.

European International Contractors (EIC) – a trade association representing internationally active European construction firms – says the rise in international revenue of contractors affiliated to its member federations is mainly due to growth in non-OECD countries, but also within Europe and in North America. International revenue, calculated without revenues from Europe, North America and Australia, grew to € 62.5 billion (US$ 47 billion) – up 18% year-on-year.

In 2015, French contractors continued to lead the field with a total international turnover of € 37 billion (US$ 41 billion) in 2015, followed by German contractors with € 26.7 billion (US$ 20.1 billion) and Turkish contractors with almost € 22 billion (US$ 16.5 billion). However, when looking at business outside of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, Turkish international contractors contributed the largest share of turnover with € 17.4 billion (US$ 13.1 billion).

On the basis of the latest available OECD data on official development assistance (ODA) for the year 2014, the majority of EIC member countries distributed more than 50% of their ODA bilaterally. Only Italy and Spain allocated more than 50% of their ODA to multilateral organisations.

Furthermore, the analysis shows that most European countries invest less than one fifth of their bilateral ODA in infrastructure projects, with donors such as France, Germany and the Netherlands being the exceptions. Germany spent 41%, France spent 36% and the Netherlands spent 28% of national ODA on infrastructure in 2014.

While France has a relatively balanced split between the transport, energy and water sectors, Germany spends 53% of its infrastructure-related ODA on projects in the energy sector.

In addition, the Netherlands spends the bulk of its infrastructure-related ODA on multi-sectoral trade-related infrastructure projects (79%). The three main infrastructure-related ODA spenders for the transport sector are France (40%), Portugal (75%) and Italy (67%).