Prepared by Tünde Tancsics and Dóra Barát – ELTINGA-EECFA Research
Prior to the publication of our 2022 Summer EECFA Construction Forecast Report, the European Commission released its forecast for the economic prospects for EECFA countries. Here are the main changes in the prospects between Autumn 2021 and Spring 2022. And as a comparison, at the end of the post you can check how we have revised our forecast.
Economic outlook has deteriorated in almost all EECFA countries compared to autumn but remains positive in most. The only exception is Russia where the economy is expected to shrink instead of the previously anticipated growth due to the war and the related sanctions. The prolongation of the war could also lead to a further decline in the economic growth of all countries.
Apart from Russia, the rest of the EECFA countries (plus Hungary, which is a Euroconstruct member) were expected to see high growth rates of over 3.8% in Autumn 2021. The slowdown of economic growth in Slovenia and Serbia is projected to be moderate, respective -0.5 and -0.7 percentage points in the Spring 2022 forecast for the period of 2022-2023. However, all other EECFA countries have larger projected declines in economic growth (ranging from -1.2% to -6.9%) compared to both the EU and the Eurozone. The forecasted economic growth fell most in Russia, Romania and Turkey (-6.9, -2.1 and -1.5 percentage points respectively). Russia is the only country that not only represents an economic contraction (-4.45%) but is also the only EECFA country to remain below the estimated GDP growth rate of the EU and Eurozone for Spring 2022. Thus, apart from Russia, the others still have the same or higher economic growth than the EU average.
In terms of gross fixed capital formation (investment), predicted growth has decreased in both EECFA countries and the Euroconstruct member Hungary, as well as in the EU. However, the extent of this decrease varies significantly among countries. Whilst in the EU and the Eurozone, projected GFCF growth fell moderately (-1.1% and -0.9%, respectively), all other countries are expected to see a decline of over 2 percentage points, Bulgaria excepted. This implies, for instance, stagnating GFCF in Bulgaria and a remarkably large negative growth in Russia (-11%), similar to the GDP growth indicator. There is also a notable falloff in Hungary and Romania (-4.9 and -4.6 percentage points, respectively), although the former started from an expected growth of more than 10% in autumn, while the latter from only 6%. It suggests that the estimated growth of the GFCF for 2022-2023 in Spring 2022 is just above 1% in Hungary. In other EECFA countries, the decline in GFCF growth varies between 2.2 and 3.1 percentage points.
Construction growth has been revised downward everywhere except for Bulgaria (0.4 percentage points). While in the EU and Eurozone the indicator declined by approximately 1 percentage point, in Slovenia, Romania and Hungary, construction growth is to fall by more than 5 percentage points in 2022-2023. However, growth remains positive for every country where data is available, with Bulgaria leading the prospects (6.6%).
So this above is the European Commission’s opinion. And here you can check how we, EECFA see the upcoming years for Eastern European construction markets. Croatia and Slovenia are on the top, while Russia and Serbia are on the bottom.
Our approach is different from that of the Commission, as we provide forecast for each segment of construction. That is, we have a bottom-up approach, where forecast is computed separately for residential, office, retail, industrial buildings, roads, railways, utility etc. segments. Mail us if you are interested.
Or check our sample report and order on eecfa.com