Construction is suffering. Builders’ merchants and housebuilders on both sides of the Atlantic have been subject to collapsing expectations and share prices. Yet the cement makers have proved more resilient. Lafarge, which now makes half its sales in emerging markets after buying Egypt-based Orascom, has fallen only 12 per cent since last summer’s peak. European housebuilders have more than halved in the same period.

European construction industry sales growth has averaged 15 per cent annually for the past five years. Almost two-thirds of that expansion came from building or renovation in the residential sector, estimates Credit Suisse. With the boom over, falls in cement demand have been reported in Spain and will probably follow in France and the UK. Investors appear, unrealistically, to be betting that new infrastructure investment will pick up the slack in mature countries. At least industrialisation in the developing world should stay strong.