The performance of the Czech building industry will return to a slight growth in the upcoming two years again after the unfavourable year 2016. The forecasts of building companies are, however, rather cautious. According to their estimations, the building production should grow in 2017 annually on average by 2.7 per cent, when the positive development is expected by almost three quarters of directors and representatives of building firms. More pessimistic expectations are reported in the outlook of this year especially by the firms focused on engineering constructions and large building companies. On the other hand, this year should be successful for companies focused on building construction and small and medium-sized firms. Nevertheless, besides building companies, optimistic expectations come also from people who plan renovations and building a house in a single-handed manner. In the long-term outlook the growth of the Czech building industry should continue at a slight rate of 1.5 per cent.
These forecasts are supported also by the current development in the field of public building orders, when the year featuring a large number of commenced tenders was followed, in the first month of this year, by 245 projects ordered by public investors from particular building firms, in a total value of CZK 9.95 billion. This represents (in an annual comparison) a growth by one tenth in the number of orders, and at the same time a strong, more than double growth of the volume. The described development is confirmed also by the fact that more than one third of building companies (35 per cent) have currently more work than in the comparable period of 2016 and they have contracts for orders for the upcoming six-month period. The average utilisation rate of capacities of building companies oscillates on average at a level of 80 per cent.
The growth of the building industry and of building firms has been supported, in a significant way, for almost thirty years, also by the International Building Trade Fair FOR ARCH, which is the largest trade fair of its type in the Czech Republic and provides the exhibitors, building experts, as well as visitors from the general public with a unique opportunity of being in touch with the latest trends in the sector which have important influence on the future development very often. Moreover, the FOR ARCH Trade Fair is not just an event lasting for several days only, but it is a project with an all-year-round impact, supporting the building industry as a whole with all its individual sectors. This is achieved through a number of partial projects, which include, for example, competition presentations of trades and crafts or competition of architects. Therefore it is no wonder that the trade fair achieves record breaking results also this year, when the number of registered firms reports a 30% growth in comparison with the last year’s data already in the first months of the year.
This year’s edition (already the 28th one) of the FOR ARCH Trade Fair will newly present the Technological Forum, whose target group consists of Czech designing and architectonic companies and studios, together with investors. They will be able to find there various professional and practical information on current trends in the building industry and on the latest technologies and products offered on both the Czech and world markets. One of the important topics will be, for example, an overview of subsidy schemes, which can be used by cities and municipalities for improvement of their infrastructure, services and for energy savings. The trade fair will not be divided into several simultaneously held trade fair events anymore, but conversely, it will be merged into one whole under the FOR ARCH brand. At the same time its visitors can look forward to the new branch focused on current trends and technologies in the area of security equipment, building protection systems, security services and cybernetic protection.