Downward trend set to continue in building trade despite small glimpses of hope

print this

Finland’s construction industry expects the downward trend to continue in the building trade also next year, despite the fact that in certain fields there is already a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.
      But even these hints of optimism depend greatly on whether the world economy will start picking up.
      According to the construction field review of business conditions published on Tuesday, the building trade will be reduced by 12 per cent this year.
     
Start-ups of house building projects have fallen by no less than 40 per cent.
      This year such activities will remain at around 30 million cubic metres, whereas the decade’s average in housing construction commencements has been in the region on 40 million cubic metres per year.
      “If the recent times have been downright lousy for the construction business, we are now heading towards the line between weak and satisfactory”, suggests Tarmo Pipatti, the Director General of the Confederation of Finnish Construction Industries (RT).
      According to RT, the positive effects of recovery are already visible in the production of new housing as well as in restoration and retrofit construction.
      Next year these effects will also extend to earthworking and waterways construction.
     
This year’s housing production will reach the level of 20,000 dwellings against the more pessimistic earlier estimates, which placed the initiations of housing projects around the 14,000 unit mark.
      State-supported housing production will grow significantly, but so will the non-subsidised production.
      According to a VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland estimate, the demand in the field of housing construction is in the region of 30,000 new dwellings per year.
     
This year the housing construction has been jazzed up by the increased interest towards the ARA-financed (The Housing Finance and Development Centre of Finland) state-subsidised rental apartments and the so-called shared ownership units. This year will see the launch of the construction of an estimated 10,000 state-subsidised units.
     
The construction of business premises, in turn, will decrease significantly this year, especially when it comes to offices and industrial buildings.
      During the first half of 2009, the start-ups of new commercial and office premises were down by 57 per cent compared to a year earlier.
      Labour reductions will continue in the construction field, as the business conditions will drag on clearly below normal in the coming winter.
      The winter’s unemployment figures will remain gloomy, the building trade predicts, even though the previous estimate of 50,000 unemployed construction workers fortunately does not look so likely to materialise.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  One in four construction workers facing unemployment (9.3.2009)

Links:
  ARA
  The Confederation of Finnish Construction Industries (RT)

Helsingin Sanomat