Romania

Overall construction activity

In 2021, Romania’s GDP amounted to €241.2 million - increasing by 9.26% with respect to 2020. 

The COVID-19 pandemic affected the construction industry with projects facing disruptions of value chains of the construction ecosystem, soaring prices of raw materials and building materials, fuel and electric energy, delays in planning and implementation and rising costs with the new measures to ensure the health and safety of workers. The average increase in prices for the building materials was approximately 40%, but for some of the main building materials like the metal products, PVC products, bitumen and some of the non–ferrous metal products, the increase exceeded 40%.

Total net investment in the national economy in 2021 amounted to €24.4 million, a 2.1% increase compared with the value from 2020. In current prices, in 2021 net investment in new construction works stood at €14.1 million, 7.1% higher than in 2020, representing 58% from the total, compared with 54.5% in 2020.

Also, in 2021, construction represented 6.6% of GDP almost similar with the value from 2020, respectively 6.3%. 

The increase in the volume of activity in the construction sector is reflected in the average number of employees in construction (NACE 41 to 43), which registered an increase of 5% in 2021, respectively 427.500 employees in 2021 compared to 407.209 employees in 2020. 

 

Housebuilding

In 2021, the volume of works (gross series) for structural elements and types of constructions, decreased by 0.6% compared to 2020. The number of building permits granted in 2021 amounted to 57.921 compared to 48.553 in 2020, out of which 51.287 (an increase of 24.01% compared with 2020) were permits for residential and 6.634 for non-residential buildings. 147 building permits have been issued for administrative buildings and 6.487 for other buildings. Regarding the total of 51.287 permits granted for residential, a higher number were granted for the rural areas- 35.680 and only 15.607 were for the urban areas.

In 2021, 71.420 houses were built, more than 3.604 compared to 2020, out of which 59.5% (decreased compared with  2020 when the percentage was 62.3) were built in urban areas and 40.5% in rural areas (the number increased compared to 2020 when the percentage was 37.7%). Most of the houses were built with private funds- 97.7% and 2.3% with public funds.

The volume of non-residential works registered an increase of 10.9% compared to 2019.