At the 30th anniversary Welconomy economic forum in Toruń, experts discussed the state of the construction markets in Poland and Ukraine.
Not every segment of construction is struggling. Colleagues from Budimex and STRABAG, whose business goes beyond housing, confirmed this. Poland has markets with positive dynamics: road construction and maintenance is growing thanks to public investment, and construction of production and logistics space is expected to grow by 45% in 2023. The situation in Ukraine is similar, and there are several reasons for it, Roman Matys said in his speech.
One factor common to Poland and Ukraine is that companies are rethinking their production policies. Given potential geopolitical threats, sanctions and restrictions on China, they are increasingly discussing moving production closer to European markets. Both Poland and western Ukraine are opening up new opportunities for plants relocating from eastern markets: the Russian market, lost for a long time, and the potentially problematic Chinese one. In Ukraine, business also expects opportunities from rebuilding infrastructure after victory over Russia. Those who think strategically are investing now, while assets are not at peak value.
The evidence includes the publicly announced €60 million investment by Germany’s Bayer, backed by German government guarantees, the Fixit group doubling its output of building materials, and Poland’s Cersanit investing $20 million in expanding production. And not every Ukrainian region looks bad when it comes to housing construction.
Of course, all this can be judged differently depending on what you compare it with. But I see it this way: if housing construction continues in some regions during a war, there is no point looking for negatives. There is demand, supply follows, so the market works. In short: invest. If you have the intention and the means, now is the time to buy assets.