ANALYSIS: Favorable conditions for the development of the construction market

The forecasts made by managers from the construction industry indicate positive growth prospects in 2014, due, on the one hand, to the budget of almost 9 billion EUR available for investment and, on the other hand, to the election period which usually creates a favourable context for the increase of the living standard of the population. Furthermore, the estimates of the main public and private specialized institutes show a positive trend for the sector; the market value will also be increased by the growth of prices for commodity and construction materials as well as from the new tax rates set at the end of last year. In a market in which any optimistic position can be easily confused with a dose of naivety and any positive estimate is immediately contradicted by daunting real events, the construction companies will be faced with a new problem, due to the worsening fiscal area, a phenomenon that has already begun to produce undesirable turbulences. Overall, the year 2014 could be a better one for several reasons: the need for economic growth assumed at Community level, the two electoral events that will take place, the funding of the projects started and the start of new ones assumed publicly through the Government budget, the obligation of alignment with the new European environmental rules by the entry into application of the EU Directives in this regard and the opening of the labor market towards Western Europe. The National Prognosis Commission (CNP) indicates in the predictions made according to the autumn variant - 2013, a 6% increase in construction output in 2014, an evolution highly superior to other economic sectors contributing to GDP. The construction industry will account for 8.6 % of GDP this year (compared to 8.2% in 2013), while the sector's contribution to the real GDP growth will range to 0.5% according to CNP. However, the decrease by 0.3% as gross series and with 1.7% as adjusted series in the volume of construction announced by the latest data published by the National Statistics Institute (INS) for the first 11 months of last year, overshadows the prospects mentioned above.