Nonresidential construction spending suffered a slight drop in March, an economist with the Associated Builders and Contractors said.

However, on a year-over-year basis, spending is up 8.3 percent to $695.7 billion, said ABC chief economist Anirban Basu. Citing government figures, Basu said March would have shown an uptick if February’s hadn’t been upwardly revised.

"Viewed optimistically, one can conclude that nonresidential construction has stabilized at a high level," Basu said. "While the last several months have failed to deliver significant spending growth, many contractors indicate that they remain busy and that backlog levels are satisfactory. Still, one might have expected better spending growth performance given the combination of steady job growth nationally, large sums of capital coming from abroad and invested in the U.S. and surprisingly low interest rates.”