Brno - With a decline in construction output this year by ten percent, up to 50,000 people could lose their jobs, which is about one-eighth of the total number. This follows from information provided to journalists today by representatives of the Association of Entrepreneurs in Construction (SPS) at the construction fair in Brno. According to the association's president Václav Matyáš, this is the more pessimistic variant of developments this year. In more optimistic variants, the association estimates that production will only decline by a few percentage points year-on-year, ideally mirroring the decrease in VAT and two to three percent. "Such a drop means some 20 billion crowns in construction work, which translates to about 10,000 to 12,000 people. It's not an insignificant number," Matyáš stated. Construction output, according to data from the Czech Statistical Office, fell by 13.2 percent in February when adjusted for the influence of working days, and by ten percent in January. The year-on-year decline was partly influenced by less favorable climatic conditions. Similar to previous months, the decline in production in building construction continued in February, at a rate of 19.5 percent. Conversely, production in civil engineering increased by 5.3 percent. Builders expect that the decline in ground and residential construction should be offset by infrastructure construction. According to builders, there should be 90 billion crowns allocated for civil engineering in the state budget, but there isn't. "However, 11.2 billion crowns are currently missing for ongoing (road) construction projects. Furthermore, not a single major transport project has begun this year, and not a single major contract has been issued," Matyáš noted. According to him, four billion crowns are missing for railway lines. A positive signal for the SPS is that the funding in the Panel program has been increased from 1.5 billion to 4.1 billion, as well as a new program from the Ministry of the Environment and the State Environmental Fund called Green Savings. In the new project, authorities will distribute ten billion crowns this year. "If it is possible to spend those ten billion, it would be the best anti-crisis measure so far. No scrappage scheme can compare to it," stated the general director of the Association of Entrepreneurs in Construction (SPS), Miloslav Mašek.
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