The first signs of a slowdown in major construction have come with Bermuda Container Line Ltd.?s announcement last week that profits for the first nine months of the year fell 17 percent.

The company said its net earnings were $2.9 million for the period, compared with $3.5 million in 2002. Profits were even higher in 2001.

The lower earnings follow an announcement last August that profits for the first six months of 2003 would be lower than the year before.

In a letter to shareholders, BCL president Geoffrey Frith attributed the decline to smaller volumes of construction materials being imported since there are fewer large building projects under way.

Official statistics on the state of the construction industry are difficult to find because Government has failed to release a Quarterly Bulletin of Statistics since early last year.

The last figures for construction starts and imports of materials released by Government are for 2002.

A newly-formatted Bulletin was supposed to be released by mid-January.

However, there are few major construction projects underway with the new Ariel Building on East Broadway the most recent start. Other projects like the Berkeley Institute site and the Atlantis apartment complex in Hamilton and are completed or have already imported the bulk of their major construction materials like steel.

Despite the earnings drop, BCL said yesterday it would pay shareholders the same dividends as last year.

The company?s directors also decided to pay shareholders a 2003 year-end dividend of 50 cents per share and dividend for the first quarter of 2004 of 11 cents per share.

The dividends are payable on February 12 to shareholders of record on February 5.

BCL operates a weekly service between Port Elizabeth, New Jersey and Hamilton with the .

An associate company, Somers Isles Shipping Ltd., operates a service three times per month between Fernandina Beach, Florida and Hamilton.