Economic relevance
a) Size of the sector
According to the European Construction Industry Federation, the construction sector as a
whole represents 10 per cent of the European GDP and employs 16 million people in the
EU-28. Within this wider sector, the construction materials sector is characterized by a
diverse and a highly fragmented range of activities and represents more than 3 per sent
of the European GDP (EC, 2011). Indeed, the sector is mostly composed by SMEs, with on
average 6 enterprises for 10,000 citizens in the EU27 in 2007, and has only very few
large construction companies (e.g. Saint Gobain, Lafarge Group, HeidelbergCement). Key
players in the construction materials sector principally include Germany, France, the UK
and Italy as illustrated.
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