In the region, Romania registered the second largest volume of leased industrial and logistic spaces, after Poland, leaving behind Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary.
Production firms were the most active in the leasing area this year, with the weight of spaces contracted by them in the overall traded volume (17%) overshooting for the first time the weights of logistic operators (10%) and FMCG companies (13%).
Q1’s biggest deal was the one sealed by Tenneco, in the wake of a sale & leaseback process, a space now owned by WDP. At the same time, Maravet pre-leased 11,000 square meters in WDP Park Baia Mare and Drim Daniel Distributie contracted 10,000 square meters of warehousing spaces in MLP Bucharest West.
From the point of new projects, the first quarter brought an investment slowdown, as developers became more cautious amid economic uncertainty.
Thus, just 50,000 square meters of new spaces were delivered in the first three months of the year, against 100,000 square meters in Q1/2023.
The stock of industrial and logistic spaces reached 7.071 million square meters. The vacancy rate stood at 6.1% in Bucharest and 5% at regional level.
Developers have projects totaling 500,000 square meters underway in various cities of Romania. Bucharest, Timisoara and Brasov are developers’ favorite destinations.
(English version by Catalina Apostoiu)