For a tenth month in a row, Bulgaria ranked in June's top 3 of the European Union (EU) countries with the sharpest drop in construction output, show the latest data by Eurostat, the EU's statistical office.

Bulgaria's construction output shrank by 17.5% year-on-year in June, better only than Hungary and Slovenia. The country has been entrenched among the EU's three worst performers every month since September 2009. It staged the sharpest collapse in December when it reported a 33.3% fall in annual terms.

On a brighter note, Bulgaria posed a 0.2% uptick in new construction in June compared with May, corresponding to 3.5% for the EU27. Individual countries enjoyed monthly gains, with Romania, for instance, posting a solid over 16% increase in construction output. Spain pulled off an over 7% rise on the month and over 18% on the year after its housing sector was wrecked even before the country slid into recession. As a result, property prices plummeted, many building companies encountered financial difficulties and unemployment skyrocketed. At the moment, Spain has the second highest jobless rate within the EU after Latvia.

The Eurostat data revealed that building construction gained 3.3% in the euro area and 5.7% in the EU27, after -0.3% and -0.5% respectively in May. Civil engineering increased by 1.2% in the euro area and by 2.0% in the EU27, after -2.9% and -1.9% respectively in the previous month.