In January the International Monetary Fund (IMF) confirmed its growth forecasts for Algeria for the two-year period 2016- 2017 and predicted a fresh acceleration in 2021. The country’s GDP grew by 3.6% in 2016 and further 2.9% growth is forecast in 2017 (+3.4% in 2021).

The North African construction sector has seen significant growth over the last 5 years and offers interesting opportunities for all players in the industry.

Strengthened by steady growth in the housing and construction markets, the U.S. economy continued to expand in 2016, helping lift the U.S. ceramic tile market to a seventh straight year of growth.

The downturn in the building sector continued also in 2016, affecting negatively production (-5.5%) and consumption (-10%) of ceramic tiles.

Production and total sales grew in 2016 to 415 million sq.m, thanks to an increase of exports and sales on the domestic market. 2017-2018 forecasts are also positive.

A report produced by BNC on behalf of the event The Big 5 reveals that investments of US $178.8 billion are in progress in 1,692 projects in this segment in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

This growth was driven by the Northern Italian regions with +22.3%, followed by Central and Southern Italy with +15.2% and +10% respectively.

For 2016 as a whole CRESME estimates total investments (including VAT) of 29.2 billion euros and 1.7 million applications.

While the Brazilian market is suffering the worst crisis in its history, Argentina, Mexico and Colombia are instead taking centre stage.

One of the sectors that is set to drive Iran's economy is construction, which closed at $154 billion at the end of 2016 and is expected to grow at an annual compound growth rate of 6.1% over the next four years to reach $196 billion in 2020.

Due to the sluggishness of the world economy, in 2015 sanitaryware exports rose by just 1.1% with respect to 2014.

Based on preliminary figures published by the Acimac Research Department, the sector’s turnover has risen by 3.9% to a record high of 2.06 billion euros.