Construction designers have more work from the state administration this year

Prague - Construction designers have more work this year from the public administration. The value of tenders announced in the first quarter increased year-on-year by 60.7% to 398 million crowns. This follows from an analysis by CEEC Research, which is available to ČTK.
Companies found more than double the number of competitions for design work in the Public Procurement Journal from January to March compared to last year. One of the largest issuers was the State Enterprise Povodí Odry with a design contract for flood protection measures valued at over 57 million CZK. This was followed by the capital city of Prague, which is seeking design work for the reconstruction and completion of the Industrial Palace. The value of this contract exceeds 39 million crowns.
"The significant increase in tenders is a confirmation of the optimistic mood in the current development of construction and a necessary prerequisite for this segment to be able to grow in the coming years. However, a fundamental problem remains the pressure for the lowest possible prices, which negatively affects the quality of the prepared projects, and subsequently the buildings themselves," said Petr Novotný.
A slightly increased interest from designers in cooperation on contracts for the state sector is also noted, for example, by the company producing elevators. "Typically, these are adjustments to shafts for elevator technologies during renovations of buildings or the design of entirely new elevators in the case of extensions. We are of course pleased with more design activity, however, the number of finally awarded contracts is still very small," said the company's operations director.
Although the public sector is announcing more contracts, it is delaying signing contracts and thereby assigning work to specific companies. "The growth in the volume of tenders for design work is certainly good news. However, it is essential to successfully complete these proceedings and assign contracts to companies for implementation, which was not particularly successful in the first quarter of 2015," emphasized the director of the analytical company CEEC Research, Jiří Vacek, noting that the volume of awarded contracts fell by 15.2 percent to 455 million crowns.
General Director of Sudop Group Pavel Havlíček pointed out that there is still a long and thorny path from announcing a tender to starting work. "There are still many companies among us that exploit the incapacity of the Office for the Protection of Competition and blackmail successful bidders with their obstructive actions into discussions about subcontracting. Signing a contract does not automatically mean that designers can immediately start work. This follows only after the submission of documents from the contracting authority and receiving the order to commence work. Sometimes it takes several months," Havlíček described the delays.
Conversely, construction companies have seen a different trend. From the beginning of the year to the end of March, public institutions announced 674 tenders for construction work worth 27 billion crowns, and their value was 2.4% lower year-on-year. Construction companies secured work worth 18.5 billion crowns during the three months, which was the amount of the completed tenders.