The coronavirus crisis slowed down the Czech construction industry. The construction output index has been rising for three years in a row, but due to the situation in relation to Covid-19, construction output has dropped by 5.7 percent year on year in the last seven months. The latest information was published on Monday by the Czech Statistical Office.
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"At the beginning of 2020, construction output was growing. Its driving force was civil engineering. However, from April onwards, the data began to show the consequences of the epidemic and the state of emergency accompanying it,"
said the chairman of the Czech Statistical Office Marek Rojíček. Moreover, even the weather refused to cooperate. This June was the rainiest in the last 60 years.
Building construction, i.e. construction of houses, apartments and offices, decreased by 8.3 percent. Civil engineering, which mainly includes the construction of transport infrastructure, has increased by mere 2.3 percent so far this year.
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Graf ukazující aktuální vývoj v oblasti pozemního stavitelstvíSource: Prezentace ČSÚ czso.cz
Not even the summer holidays brought a breakthrough for the better!
"The latest data for July didn't improve this year's balance sheet and a relatively large decline occurred in both segments. While building construction has slowed its decline, While building construction slowed down its decline, civil engineering fell the most this year,"
added Petra Cuřínová, Head of the CZSO Construction Statistics Department. According to Cuřínová, there is a lack of foreign workers, and demand is also stagnant due to the administrative unpreparedness of constructions.
The number of completed apartments is also on decline - between January and July, 7.4 percent fewer apartments were completed year-on-year. The worst month was April, when the number of completed apartments decreased by almost a third compared to last year (32.5 percent).
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Graf ukazující, kolik bytů se v tomto roce postaviloSource: Prezentace ČSÚ czso.cz
However, statisticians see hope for a turnaround. The positive news is the stock of permitted constructions. Although the approximate value of building permits fell by 0.6 percent year on year from January to the end of July, the situation began to improve in July - statistics show that the value of building permits increased by more than a fifth.
Moreover, the Czech Republic is not doing badly in the context of the rest of the European Union either, it's even slightly above average. Italy and France, on the other hand, saw the biggest declines, while Romania and Serbia withstood the crisis the best.
