Construction sector used to contribute 11% of the GDP during the boom days, as well as one third of the country’s’ economic growth at the time, which stood at more than 7%, according to the ZF calculations based on the data provided by the National Statistics Institute.
“A normal country with a healthy economy should have the construction sector contributing 12% to 15% of the GDP,” says Adriana Iftime, vice-president of the Association of Construction Companies and of chief executive of the Federation of the Associations of Construction Companies.
Even though Romania posted economic growth of 3.5% last year, the construction industry had no contribution to it, with the GDP helped by agriculture and exports.
The volume of construction works dropped 1.6% year-on-year in 2013, according to the National Statistics Institute. Infrastructure works, which have generated most business in the construction sector in the past few years, saw a 1.9% decline due the public investment spending cut by about 7.5% and the EU funds frozen in the first half of 2013.
“In Romania, which doesn’t have enough investment as it is, from major to minor infrastructure, when the government comes and says it won’t allocate money for investment, everything collapses,” Adriana Iftime said.
“It’s such a shame that the construction sector’s share of GDP is less than 10%. It’s disheartening and we can really feel it. This situation will last a while,” she added.
The government set out to allocate about 13.3 billion lei (almost EUR3 billion) to public construction projects this year, almost 12% more than in 2013, according to Budget Minister Liviu Voinea. (EUR1=RON4.4949)
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)