Construction sector remains resilient

CEBU, Philippines - Although players from Cebu’s construction industry collectively agree that the impact of the global crisis is slowly taking its toll on the industry, they have also concurred that so far, the sector remains resilient.

Recently, the biggest and longest running annual construction trade exhibition in the Southern Philippines tagged as the 17th CebuCon ’09 (Construction Show Cebu) opened to the public at the SM City Cebu Trade Hall.

The annual trade exhibition is a project of L.A. Ducut and Company Inc. in partnership with the United Architects of the Philippines Green Architecture Movement and the Hardwares Consolidated, Incorporated.

Hardwares Consolidated, Inc. past president Charles Kenneth Co said that there are projects that are currently put on hold as industry players continue to monitor the economic situation.

He said that when the global financial crisis broke out, some homeowners shelved initial plans of building or renovating their homes considering the movement of the economy and most decided to just hold on to their money until the economy gets better.

However, the emergence of new real estate investments such as condominiums and subdivisions as well as commercial buildings gave the construction industry the reason to hold on to its optimism.

“In the consumer side, they have tried to prolong their plans and some are waiting for better signal from the economy to ensure their investments,” he said.

 Co said that in terms of prices for the construction material, there has been a noted decrease of prices for some materials like cement and steel.

“All the prices of the construction materials have been affected by the crisis but we can still say that at the moment, the industry continues to be resilient and indicators of these are the existing projects around the city and the start of new projects,” said Co.

“For people who still have the funds, it’s a good time to continue your projects because the prices of construction materials are relatively much cheaper compared to previous times and suppliers now a days are hungry for business and they are in the look out for ways to attract the market to still get good margins,” he said.

He said that the crisis had indeed dampened the growth of their sector but it has not generally created a big impact unlike the previous Asian Financial Crisis in the 90’s.

“The sector has been dampened by the crisis because consumers started to fear its possible impacts and they started to save but the sector is still generally fare at the moment and the good number of attendees in the construction show could be a good indicator that people are still interested to build their houses,” he stressed.

Aside from the exhibition of various construction materials and services, the 17th CebuCon, which will run from June 5 to June 8, the Green Seminar conducted by the United Architects of the Philippines- Green Architecture Movement, is also a main highlight of the event.