A roundup of today's other business news in brief

Building slump continued in May

The slump in the construction sector continued last month and the recession in the building industry has now lasted a full three years, according to the latest Ulster Bank construction purchasing managers’ index.

Building activity on residential and public sector projects fell at sharper levels in May than during the previous month, while commercial construction activity fell at a slightly weaker pace. New business activity continued to fall forcing construction companies to shed jobs during the month, according to the Ulster Bank survey. Simon Barry, chief economist at the bank, said the sector faced a fresh challenge as costs rose for the first time since August 2008.

EU president targets tougher regulation

Herman Van Rompuy, the EU’s president, has criticised financial markets for over-reacting to the euro zone’s economic difficulties and being too heavily influenced by “rumours and prejudices”.

Mr Van Rompuy said the euro zone had been on the edge of a breakdown last month that could have caused a world crisis.

But European leaders now understood that the way forward was to implement politically unpopular but vital economic reforms, he said.

He acknowledged that the markets had played a useful role since the Greek debt crisis in identifying weaknesses in economic governance.

– (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010)

Small firms still struggling – survey

Three out of every five small companies view the overall business environment as poor or very poor while only one in four rate their business as good or very good, according to the summer business sentiment survey from the Small Firms Association. Companies said that accessing to finance remained the biggest challenge and that many firms remained under serious pressure.

Some 20 per cent said the cost of working capital from lenders had increased over the last three months, while 20 per cent had seen the availability of working capital decrease over that time. Just 16 per cent of the 622 firms surveyed expect the business environment in three months’ time to be very good or good.