RIGA, Aug. 12 (Xinhua) -- Latvia's construction sector, which has been showing very rapid growth during the past couple of years, continues to expand but at a more moderate rate, the Baltic country's Economics Ministry said on Monday citing data for the first half of 2019 released by the national statistics office.

The dynamic of Latvia's construction output in 2019 suggests that the growth rate has been slowing down, the ministry said in a report.

In the first half of 2019, construction output increased by 3.4 percent against the same period last year. This growth, however, has been quite uneven, as it dropped from 7.4 percent in the first quarter of the year to just 1 percent in the second quarter.

The Economics Ministry attributed this to the exceptionally strong results achieved in the previous years, completion of several major private development projects and a slower inflow of European Union funds.

The small increase in the second quarter of 2019 was only achieved thanks to growing construction of buildings, which rose 4.6 percent year on year, while specialized construction remained unchanged against the second quarter of 2018. Meanwhile, construction of engineering structures continued to decline.

The number of building permits issued in Latvia in the first half of 2019 rose by 369 year on year to 2,483, while the overall size of the construction projects increased by 28 percent. Enditem

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