The number of completed flats in Slovakia has fallen year-on-year in the first quarter of 2022.  Construction around Bratislava has also been on a downward trend for several quarters. However, three Slovak regions report the opposite trend with a dynamic increase in the number of completed apartments. The recovery can be observed in the number of flats under construction, according to data from the Statistical Office of Slovakia, reality.trend.sk reports.

The number of completed flats in the Czech Republic increased in the year 2021 by half a percent. A total of 34,581 flats were completed last year. However, the rising figures are due to extensions, while the number of flats completed in detached and apartment buildings fell. In the future, according to statisticians, it can be assumed that new construction will decline for many reasons, writes the Czech News Agency (ČTK) based on the statistics published today by the Czech Statistical Office (CSO).

The Slovak construction market is the smallest among the member countries of the Euroconstruct area. Due to its size, it is significantly more affected by both favourable and unfavourable influences. Overall, the private sector contributes more to construction investment than the public sector. With one exception, civil engineering, where public investment is higher. In residential construction private investment exceeds public. This can be attributed to a widely neglected public rental housing programme in Slovakia, writes Radovan Kostelník from ÚEOS Komercia in his study for the independent organization Euroconstruct that unites research organisations from 19 EU countries.

Newly approved building regulations in Slovakia will significantly reduce the endless waiting for building permits. Thanks to advanced digitalisation, the individual processes and the timeframes for their execution are shortened. Builders will thus be able to calculate the capital invested and the entire work schedule more accurately. Therefore, a new Office for Spatial Planning and Construction is being established as a central state administration body, as well as a specialised construction office for the so-called EIA of construction at the Ministry of the Environment, webnoviny.sk informs.

The Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic has decided on a one-year postponement of the effectiveness of part of the Construction Act. Instead of the planned central construction office, which the previous government of Andrej Babiš wanted, they are preparing the digitalisation of the process, the Czech Press Agency reports.

The Hungarian construction industry started off this year with an exceptionally high Activity Start indicator: nearly HUF 1,300 billion worth of construction works started in Q1 2022. The Activity Start of EBI Construction Activity Report in the first quarter is a new record (construction works have never started in such a high value in one quarter) and exceeded the level of Q2 2021 (the highest so far) by almost 37%. Yet, this spike is mainly thanks to the launch of two major infrastructure projects, according to the EBI Construction Activity Report, prepared by Buildecon, Eltinga (creation of indicators and development of algorithms for aggregation) and iBuild (project research and project database).

According to Yasen Georgiev from EPI, EECFA Bulgaria, like elsewhere in the EECFA countries that are not directly impacted by the war in Ukraine, the construction market in Bulgaria entered a period of an increasing unpredictability. What stands behind is an interplay between domestic and external factors.

New laws on spatial planning and construction will replace the nearly half-century-old 1976 Construction Act in Slovakia. The National Council of the Slovak Republic approved them on Wednesday with a large number of changes compared to the original form, along with a related amendment to the Competence Act, reports webnoviny.sk.

Serbia’s construction market was booming when the economic and geopolitical situation changed, so the complicating circumstances in the world are stifling the potential growth and slowing down the ongoing recovery. Inflationary pressures have exploded with the start of the war in Ukraine and the effects of the current crisis are still unforeseeable, writes Dejan Krajinović from Beobuild Core d.o.o. for EECFA Serbia.

The latest report from research firm Spectis indicates that following a strong start to the year, the outlook for the construction sector over the coming months of 2022 is now less bright. The expected slowdown can be indirectly caused by the ongoing war in Ukraine, which only aggravates the problems the market has been facing previously, such as soaring prices of raw materials, building materials, and energy sources or the shortage of labour.