ELSTAT: Rise in Construction and Road Freight

ELSTAT brought to the public, with data published on 27 and 28 September 2026, two different facets of the real economy: the private construction activity of June 2026 and road freight transport of the first quarter of the year. As reported by skai.gr, construction licenses in June 2026 were up 21.8% compared to June 2025, the area up 25.2% and the volume up 22.7%, with the percentages attributed to ELSTAT. On the transport side, reporter.gr reported that, according to ELSTAT, the freight transported on Greek roads in the first quarter of 2026 amounted to 54,125.0 thousand tonnes, up 6.7% compared to the first quarter of 2025, while tonne-kilometre transport recorded a rise of 3.5%.

The two indicators measure things of different nature. Private construction activity is captured through the licenses issued for private projects, with the area and volume providing the scale of the projects that were licensed. This is therefore a record of issued licenses and not of completed constructions. Road freight transport, for its part, is used as an indicator of goods movement in the country. Tonnes show how much weight was transported, while tonne-kilometre transport also factors in the distance of the route, which is why the two magnitudes do not necessarily move at the same pace, as is apparent from the 6.7% against the 3.5%.

For the economy, the data describe two fields where the year-on-year changes recorded by ELSTAT are positive: in the private building sector for June 2026 and in goods handling on the road network for the first quarter of the year. The two measurements concern different periods, a month and a quarter, and are not connected to each other in terms of cause and effect, nor can they be directly compared. As for the regions, the material that was made public and reported by the two media includes national magnitudes. The geographic distribution of licenses and freight does not emerge from the available information and will need to be sought in ELSTAT’s detailed bulletins.

In the period ahead, interest focuses on the detailed information published by ELSTAT for the same indicators, as each new monthly or quarterly announcement adds another point to the series. Until then, the picture that has been recorded is limited to what ELSTAT measured and reported by skai.gr and reporter.gr: increases of 21.8% in licenses, 25.2% in area and 22.7% in volume for June 2026, as well as an increase of 6.7% in road freight and 3.5% in tonne-kilometre transport for the first quarter of 2026. The percentages concern year-on-year comparisons with the corresponding periods of 2025 and do not, on their own, provide a safe conclusion for the course of the coming months.