While they have been soaring for several months, the prices of building materials have continued to climb in recent weeks, in particular because of the war in Ukraine, alert Thursday the Construction Confederation, which does not expect this trend to continue. stop soon.
Since the beginning of January, the prices of building materials have increased by up to 12%, according to a survey by the sector organization of 210 companies.
These increases “mainly concern steel, wood, insulation materials and non-ferrous metals and, least, glass products, infrastructure materials, bricks and tiles. With the war in Ukraine, 95% of entrepreneurs expect further increases in the coming months, especially for steel products”indicates the Construction Confederation in a press release.
The increase in the price of materials is supported in half of the cases by the construction company, which weighs on profitability, continues the sectoral organization. In the other half of the cases, the increases are attributed to the customer, but more often only partially (29%) than completely (18%). In addition, 72% of the companies surveyed by the Construction Confederation note a deterioration in delivery times. These delays mainly concern installation materials, such as bricks and tiles, as well as steel products. Here too, a large majority of entrepreneurs (83%) expect the situation to worsen following the war in Ukraine, especially for steel products. Finally, the Construction Confederation specifies that at the end of 2021, the construction sector had 2,500 posted Ukrainian workers in Belgium. Slightly more than one in 10 entrepreneurs who work with Ukrainian posted workers report that some employees have returned to their country
