ITIC

Fernando Paes Afonso
Mail: sede@itic.pt, bbmartins@itic.pt
Web: www.itic.pt

The Portuguese construction market is estimate to worth € 25,574 million of which approximately 23% is renovation. This percentage is substantially lower than the observed in most countries within the Euroconstruct network. Only in 3 out of the 19 Euroconstruct countries (EC19) the renovation share in total construction output is inferior to the observed in Portugal. Those countries are Czech Republic (13.4%), Ireland (18.6%) and Slovak Republic (21.9%). In 7 countries that figure is above the EC 19 average (44.8%) and only in 3 does renovation represent more than 50% of the construction output (Sweden, Denmark and Italy).

Renovation Share in Total Construction Output

As for the housing sector, in Portugal the renovation works represent approximately 30.0% of the construction output. This figure is substantially higher than the one presented in recent Euroconstruct Reports. The usual figure was approximately 10%, a percentage that was clearly not real for the market as a whole. In fact, the 10% figure excluded an important production component: the non-declared and DIY (do-it-yourself) output.

For the EC19 housing renovation represented, in 2004, 50.9% of total residential output. The size of the renovation market across the Euroconstruct area stood between 18.0% (in Ireland) and 65.1% (in the United Kingdom). From the so called big 5 (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and UK) only in Spain did housing renovation share in total residential output remained far from the EC 19 average. It's interesting to notice that 3 Eastern countries are among the smallest investors in housing renovation: Hungary (23.7%), Czech Republic (25.0%) and Slovak Republic (25.2%). In Poland the share of the renovation market in total housing construction is 41.7%.

This could reflect the fact that in countries with a weaker middle class the will to spend a significant share of disposable income in improving housing standards is significantly low.