The detailed breakdown offers both confirmations and surprises. The marginal increase in private consumption was on the cards. Notwithstanding a resilient labour market and low inflation, consumer surveys had anticipated the continuation of a prudent approach on the household side.
The breakdown of the gross fixed capital formation aggregate comes as a surprise, though, as the onus of the positive push on growth rests on the residential part of the construction component – which, in principle, is less prone to benefit from the final (official) leg of the recovery plan. The infrastructural part surprisingly contracted, signalling a pause in the rush to complete investment plans. Whether this reflects growing manpower availability constraints or the awareness that it will be possible to complete many projects even after the plan’s official August deadline is more difficult to say.