The round-table meeting “Development of the construction materials market within the context of industrial parks” initiated by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Committee on Construction, Urban Development, Housing and Communal Services headed by the Committee’s Deputy Chairman, people’s deputy Petro Sabashuk took place on May 16.
The head of the Better Regulation Delivery Office’s (BRDO) Construction sector Olena Shulyak presented the analysis of the housing stock of Ukraine and pointed out the need to conduct a large-scale thermal modernization of buildings to improve their energy efficiency. In fact, according to statistics, the average age of residential houses in Ukraine is almost 42 years and the total housing facilities (most of which require the thermal modernization) exceed 996 million square meters. These scales will require not only the funds, but also the possibilities to provide enough construction materials for modernization.
In the expert’s opinion, one of the most efficient and appropriate ways to provide the market with modern construction materials is a possibility to create industrial parks, which would merge the enterprises into industrial clusters producing modern construction materials, on the basis of concrete products plants.
“Reducing the contribution of the construction industry to the Ukraine’s GDP to 2.3% in recent years has a negative impact on the overall economy. Any infrastructure projects implies dozens of involved sectors, hundreds of thousands of jobs and millions of budget revenues. Implementing projects of industrial parks that can meet the industry’s needs in modern construction materials with the government support will create the effect of quick return on state investments through providing new jobs. As opposed to massive imports of materials, the development of domestic production will be not only a cost-effective project but also a socially desirable one. However, for this purpose, it is needed to make amendments to legal and regulatory acts related to the establishment and operation of industrial parks,” the BRDO expert said.
Olena Shulyak gave examples of the European practice regarding the operation of industrial parks that has over 100 years of history. According to the data in the expert’s presentation, the production of construction materials is among the five main sectors actively developed in modern industrial parks. Moreover, in the world’s practice, almost 40% of industrial parks are located in the area of 5 to 20 hectares. At the same time, Ukrainian legislation determines the establishing an industrial park in the area of at least 15 hectares. This hinders the possibility of adjusting private enterprises (which often occupy the area of around 10 hectares) to the needs of industrial parks in Ukraine.
This meeting was a logical continuation of a series of events, where the development and prospects of the segment of technological and industrial parks in Ukraine have been analyzed. The UBC, the Association of Industrial Parks of Ukraine, the All-Ukrainian Union of Manufacturers of Construction Materials and the BRDO participated in the discussion. A key element of this meeting was the discussion of a practical aspect of transformation of private enterprises (including concrete products plants) into modernized enterprises producing modern construction materials.
As a result of the meeting, it was decided to create a working group to work out amendments to the Ukrainian legislation in order to address the issues related to producing modern construction materials by improving the development of the industrial parks network. The purpose of the working group should be to create conditions for producing modern energy efficient construction materials for thermal modernization of buildings. The participants suggested to revise the principles of the activity of state agencies for investments, which shouldn’t be directly engaged in fundraising but focus on building a favorable investment climate by making amendments to the legislation, as a separate issue. According to the experts, it is also important to conduct public awareness campaigns on the possibilities of industrial parks in the regions.
The Ukrainian Building Community was a co-organizer of the event.