This study was part of the assessment of the role of the Construction Products Regulation (305/2011/EU) as an Internal Market instrument to facilitate cross-border trade within the European Union. It aimed to provide the European Commission with a comprehensive and unbiased understanding of the trends of cross-border trade of construction products over 2003-2015 and the factors influencing these trends. The project specifically investigated the role of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the cross-border trade of construction products.
The study included the analysis of long-time series of data retrieved from 1) the COMEXT database on the trade of goods in the EU Member States, Candidate countries and EFTA countries; 2) the PRODCOM database of annual industrial production statistics, and 3) the Orbis database of financial data at company level.
The amount of evidence and robust analysis of cross-border trade data produced provided a clearer picture of the trade trends of a representative set of construction products and the role of the Construction Products Regulation to discuss whether some new policy actions should be envisaged to address the trade needs.