Italian construction businesses are facing up to the crisis by focusing on foreign markets. This is what emerges from the latest figures supplied by the sector associations. According to ANCE (National Association of Constructors), in 5 years the share of the Italian construction sector’s foreign business has practically doubled, growth increasing at 23% a year and a turnover of around 12 billion euro a year. There are more than 500 construction sites abroad and OICE, the national association that brings together engineering, architectural and technical-economic consultancy organisations, stresses that, in 2008, the top design companies increased their foreign orders by 60%. After a period of decline, the national tendency to international work that brought the Italian construction so many successes in the 1980s has re-emerged. However, in contrast to that period - when individual companies tended to look abroad - nowadays they are more inclined to work in groups and create consortia, as Impregilo has done for the widening of the Panama Canal project.

For most Italian construction businesses looking to export, the main structural advantage over foreign competitors (French, German, Spanish and even the Chinese, who have made enormous progress in recent years) consists in the smaller size of their businesses. Constructors believe that the fundamental prerequisite for growth abroad is an efficient internal market with investment programmes that can be relied on over a period of time.

The most interesting destinations for Italian constructors are the oil producing nations, where there is a need for infrastructures. Additionally, Latin America and Eastern Europe are considered particularly profitable areas. In particular, a rosy future for Eastern European markets emerges from the latest figures released by Euroconstruct, an association grouping about 30 sector research institutes (Italy is represented here by CRESME, the Construction Industry Economic, Social and Market Research Centre). While a decline in earnings in Europe of 7.5% is foreseen for 2009, companies operating in Eastern Europe are experiencing quite the opposite trend: the driving forces here are Poland (recording +11.3% in 2008) and Slovakia (+8.9% last year). Overall, during a bleak year for European construction, the result for Eastern Europe in 2009 will be positive at around 1.2%, growing more sharply in 2010 (expected +6.3%) and 2011 (probably about 10.5%). Growth will result above all from public works, expected to grow at a rate of 20%.