The Scottish Building Federation has called on ministers to "use all instruments at their disposal" to get the construction industry back on track, following a decline in output in 2012.

The announcement follows the results for November 2012, which were published at the beginning of the New Year.

The figures show substantial drops in output across all of the main industry sectors in the UK.

A 16% fall was experienced by the private commercial sector during the three months to November, while the public housing sector suffered a 20% decline over that same period.

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Scottish Building Federation Executive Director Michael Levack, said: "With eleven months of data now compiled for the construction industry last year, output has fallen by more than 8% compared to 2011, wiping more than £8bn off its value to the UK economy.

"We'll need to wait until early March to see how the Scottish industry has performed in the last quarter of 2012 but I fully anticipate that those figures will also show steep falls in output for the full calendar year."

Mr Levack added: "What's more, our own membership survey published in December and the recent survey from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors both confirm that the future outlook for the industry remains extremely challenging.

"In this context, there can be no greater priority for ministers than to use all instruments at their disposal to get shovels in the ground quickly on publicly funded projects and to introduce additional tax measures to stimulate private sector demand, in particular by slashing VAT on building repair and maintenance works."

(IT)