Number of residential building permits at 20,345 in H1, down 0.9 pct

As many as 20,345 residential building permits were issued in the first half of this year, by 0.9 pct less than in the same period of 2018, shows data released on Wednesday by the National Institute of Statistics (INS). 

A breakdown by development regions is as follows: West (-375 permits), North-East (-158), North-West and Bucharest-Ilfov (-20 each), South-East (+248), Center (+65), South-Muntenia (+49), South-West Oltenia (+36). 

The number of residential building permits released this June was 3,874, by 259 less compared to the month before; 65.5 percent of the residential building permits issued this June are for rural areas.