Growth of the industrial construction sector in 2021
By Perla Eunice
August 26, 2021
Due to the pandemic, the building sector had an atypical year with delays in most of the projects. However, Jaqueline Mejía, Market Intelligence Real Estate en Market Analysis, pointed out that industrial construction remained more active than the rest of the sectors due to the arrival of new developers, the growth of logistics and the e-commerce.
- There were 13,057,348 SF under
construction during 2019.
- There were 15,859,706 SF under
construction during 2020.
- So far there are 23,703,110 SF under construction
in 2021.
The director went on to add that one of the
main impacts of the pandemic on the sector was the exponential increase in
construction materials. "Steel had the biggest impact, with 267%
(hot-rolled coil steel futures), as compared to March 2020 with the September
2021 projection."
In that regard, he reported that the main
challenge for construction is to keep costs within an acceptable range for
builders and developers in order to reduce the impact to the final customer.
"This will require time/cost planning
and strategic volume negotiations, as well as the search for and innovation in
terms of possible building solutions," he said.
To conclude, Marcos Álvarez said that a
"comeback" in costs is not expected in the short term, but rather a
slow recovery in the industry is estimated.
"Steel trends (hot-rolled coil steel
futures) present projections of recovery until April 2023, considering reaching
the same prices of March 2020", he concluded.
CONTACT:
Jaqueline Mejía
Market Intelligence Real Estate en Market Analysis