Press Release on EBI Construction Activity Report Q2 2020 – Hungary
When assessing the first quarter of 2020, analysts of EBI Construction Activity Report Q1 2020 already highlighted the impact of the pandemic on the Hungarian construction industry. Back then, they did it with the help of a forecast based on limited available data, but since then actual data have been released and the impact of the pandemic on the sector can be assessed in detail.
Prepared by Buildecon, Eltinga (creation of indicators and development of algorithms for aggregation) and iBuild (project research and project database), EBI Construction Activity Report examines the domestic construction industry on a quarterly basis, including the volume of newly started construction works, and the value of projects completed in a given quarter by aggregate and by subsector as well. Owing to the pandemic, the analysts of EBI decided to follow the changes affecting the construction industry even more closely and run a monthly update of the EBI visualizations for Start, Completion and the resulting Output for each segment. Full publications can be purchased at ebi@ibuild.info.
In Hungary, the pandemic imposed major restrictions from mid-March on, which only slightly affected construction works starting or getting completed in Q1 2020. However, April and May were marked by severe measures. Figures for the second quarter of the year show that even though the pandemic had had an impact on the sector, there was no drastic fall. It is certain that construction projects did not start at such a low value in Hungary since the last quarter of 2016, and there was a big slump against the beginning of 2020, but compared to the figures of the last and first quarters of 2019, the difference is not so much. It is therefore worth taking a closer look at exactly which segments saw a downturn, as some of the drop may have been caused by other market processes in addition to the pandemic.
While in Q2 2020 construction works started in the construction industry on a total value of HUF 418 billion, in Q1 2020 this figure was HUF 606 billion. Thus, a strong start to the year (an increase over the end of last year) was followed by a 30% decrease. Yet, the renovation works of M3 metro line and the next phase of the Samsung project in Göd started in Q1, contributing with a significant amount to the high Activity Start Indicator of EBI Construction Activity Report Q1 2020. Overall, the first half of the year has not yet seen a major decline in the value of construction works that started in the construction industry, although it is true that it has now hit its lowest level since 2016.
In H1 2020 a major share (45%) of started construction works were concentrated in the Central Hungary region. This was mainly thanks to the higher investment numbers in Q1, so in Q2 the region had a similar share to the previous years. The rest of the country also had a very similar share of started new construction works to previous years.