Josef Wiedermann, Managing Director of UBM Development Czechia talked to Property Forum about recent changes, ESG strategies and provided insight into the company’s ambitious plans for becoming the largest developer of timber buildings in Europe.

Bulgaria’s Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) aims to facilitate economic and social recovery from the COVID-19 crisis and to create a more sustainable, equitable, and successful economy. It includes a set of schemes not only to restore the economy's growth potential but to boost it, too. In achieving this, several construction projects to increase energy efficiency and decrease CO2 impact are to be implemented in 2023-2026, says Anita Dangova at EPI, EECFA’s Bulgarian research institute.

Dr. Erwin Hanslik MRICS, Taylor Wessing’s CEE Head of Real Estate & Construction and head of the firm's Prague and Brno offices, talked to Property Forum about the legal challenges real estate investors and developers in the Czech Republic have to face.

Hungary’s high construction activity start in Q1 2022 was followed by a slowdown in Q2 2022. The EBI Construction Activity Report has found that between this April and June construction works started at a value of around HUF 800 billion. Although the value of projects entering construction decreased in Q2, these are not low numbers at all as Activity Start has been the 5th highest (on a quarterly basis) of recent years. It should be added, though, that recently construction costs have dramatically increased, massively pushing up the Activity Start indicator calculated at current prices, while at constant prices the volume would be lower.

During five months of war in Ukraine, millions of square meters of housing, production facilities, and infrastructure were destroyed. To speed up the recovery, Ukrainian legislation governing urban planning was simplified. Alexandra Fedotova, Partner, Attorney and Head of Ader Haber's real estate and construction practice and the Board Member of the Charity Fund Housing For IDP, reviewed the changes in an article prepared by the Ukrainian Real Estate Club for Property Forum.

Bogdan Doicescu, Development Director & Executive Board Member at Bog’Art, spoke to Property Forum about the cost forecast for the construction market in 2022 and the company’s plans to diversify their activity with their own residential developments in Bucharest.

After declines in Polish non-residential construction in 2020 and 2021, PAB-PCR&F Institute, the Polish member of Euroconstruct, forecasts a growth of over 3% annually in 2022-2024.

Austrian developer Karimpol Group has finished the first stage of the Squarebizz Bory project in Bratislava, which comprises eco-friendly retail storage, service and showroom space within an area of 15,000 sqm. The developer also announced the first tenants who have signed contracts already and the launching of the second phase.

Previous optimism over the prospect of the construction market in the Southeast European region is gone, the Eastern European Construction Forecasting Association (EECFA) reports. The current forecast is foreshadowing almost no growth until 2023 and contraction in 2024. The main reason behind is the worsening climate for construction due to the consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The hotel will be erected on Hungaria Boulevard and is an investment of Europa Investment Property, which belongs to the Premiot investment group, Építészfórum reports.