The Construction Products Association's latest State of Trade Survey, which has been launched today, indicates a slight improvement for construction product manufacturers during Quarter 1, even though the longer term outlook is still uncertain.

These figures conflict with last month's official ONS statistics for construction and confirm the serious doubt expressed by the Association at the time.

Unseasonal mild and dry weather coupled to restocking and a favourable exchange rate has improved operating conditions for construction product manufacturers, especially when compared to the weather affected final quarter of last year.

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The ONS figures indicated a 0.5% rise in GDP but a fall in construction output of 4.7% for the first quarter of 2011. Despite an overall growth in the economy the Association expressed concerns over the suggested size of the fall in construction output as the industry has shown some signs of improvement since the start of the year.

Commenting on the figures, Construction Products Association Economics Director, Noble Francis said: "The survey highlights that the situation for construction product manufacturers remained challenging in the first quarter of 2011 yet this is a considerable improvement on 2010 Q4 which suffered greatly from the impacts of the bad weather in November and December. 48% of manufacturers reported that sales of construction products rose in 2011 Q1, compared to just 14% in 2010 Q4. Yet the scale of the fall in the official figures is extremely surprising and inconsistent with information from this survey and anecdotal evidence from the industry."

(CD/KMcA)