ANALYSIS: The market for architectural services rose by 8.8%

The economic segments involving architectural and engineering activities, namely technical testing and analysis, rose - as adjusted series - by 5.7% in June compared to May 2015, but as gross series the current data indicates a progress on sequential basis of 17.6%, as it reflects the latest information from the Romanian Statistics Institute (INS). According to the research entitled "Turnover in market services rendered mainly to enterprises" the revenues of the aforementioned companies (expressed in nominal terms) fell in June 2015 by 0.5% as adjusted series, but increased by 0.1% in terms of gross series compared to the same month of the previous year. At the same time, companies providing architectural and engineering services have reported in the first half of this year an increase in turnover which accounted for 109.4% of the level recorded in the first six months of 2014. The real increase in the analyzed period was of about 8.8% as indicated the adjusted value for the number of working days and seasonal factors which jump to 108.8%. After in the last six months of 2014 were recorded some problems, in the first part of the ongoing year the construction market in Germany which involved also the architecture sector grows again at a faster pace than estimated. Positive signals noted before in the Netherlands and Spain intensified, but France and Italy are experiencing difficulties and, therefore, most designers of the two countries are in a survival situation, as shown in the latest Arch Vision report entitled European Architectural Barometer. More than 1,600 architects from eight EU Member States (UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Poland) consider that, after an overall decrease of 1% in 2014, the European market architecture will stabilize this year but at a reduced level, and between 2016-2017 will install a recovery trend, with modest annual increases between 1% and 2%. The evolution continues to be, however, heterogeneous in each of the analyzed markets, especially depending on dynamics of issuance of building permits.