Hungarian building industry association EVOSZ believes the construction sector could contract 10-12% this year, an even bigger decline than the 8-10% projected earlier, deputy chairman Laszlo Koji said on Monday, after the Central Statistics Office (KSH) published fresh data.

KSH said construction sector output fell 12.3% year-on-year in August, slowing from a 15.4% decline in July. In a month-on-month comparison, output rose 1.6% in August.

New order stock is falling, which means there will be no noticeable pickup on the market for the next six months to a year, Koji said.

Koji welcomed the government’s recently announced “home creation” program, but said the scale of the funding involved is still a big question.

Takarékbank analyst Gergely Suppan said the month-on-month expansion of the sector in August was a positive sign, but he added that the rise was small and likely the result of a low base.

The outlook for the sector is not good considering the low stock of orders, he added.