Goran Vesić, Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure of the Republic of Serbia, said this evening after participating in the “Regional arc-ap eco conference” in Kopaonik that by the end of the year the construction industry will decline by 10 percent, which is a consequence of the impact of the crisis on the private sector, but that the state will adopt measures for the recovery of the gray sector of the economy.
“Construction participates in the domestic GDP this year in the first three quarters with 5.21 percent, in the first two quarters it created 1.4 billion euros and that is a better result than all other countries in the Balkans, because Albania, which was behind us had 830 million euros in revenue,” Vesić told Tanjug.
He stated that the decline of domestic construction in the third quarter of this year amounted to 12.4 percent, but that such a trend is also characteristic of large EU countries, which is the impact of the crisis, primarily on the private sector of the construction industry.
“We have the same level of investments by state projects, but private construction has had a harder time deciding on investments, because no one knows what will happen with the euro and whether there will be enough energy,” explained Vesić.
He added that in the last five years, the value of works in construction has increased from 2.5 billion euros in 2017 to more than five billion in 2021, and that by the end of this year, a total decrease of around 10 percent is expected.
“But even with that drop, we will have a higher value of works this year than previous ones, but 2021 was extremely good, and that’s why the drop is so big when you measure this year compared to the previous year,” explained Vesić.
He pointed out that Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabić has already scheduled meetings with competent institutions and the Chamber of Commerce in order to consider measures that can ensure the continuation of the strong pace of construction development.
“For us, the construction industry is extremely important, because it affects our GDP a lot and creates relatively high salaries, because the average salary in 2021 was more than 64,000 dinars,” said Vesić.
He drew attention to the fact that the price of real estate in Belgrade is much higher than in other capitals of neighboring countries, because the average value of a square meter in Belgrade in the middle of the year was 2,232 euros, while in Sarajevo it was 1,838 euros, in Skopje 1,700 euros, in Podgorica 1,462 , and in Tirana 1,143 euros.
“The increase in the price of square meters in the first half of 2022 compared to 2021 was 11.7 percent, which only indicates that demand is growing, which means that with good measures we can again come to a situation where we have more construction, and I expect that it will happen as the crisis in Europe calms down, because it cannot last forever,” said Vesić, Sputnik reports.
