PKCG: Working together to a more favorable business and legislative framework in construction

In the construction sector, significant growth in all indicators has been achieved in recent years, thanks to the implementation of projects in the field of road and energy infrastructure, construction of tourist capacities, completion of the highway section, as well as construction works in the domain of public works, according to the Chamber of Commerce (PKCG).

The Chamber said that, like almost all other sectors, this one also suffered the consequences of the Ukrainian crisis, so market disturbances caused the price of almost all building materials, fuel, lubricants and other resources in the chain of construction works and services to rise. A significant jump in the prices of materials, according to contracts signed in accordance with public procurement, led to losses ranging from 20 percent to 50 percent, depending on when the contracts were concluded.

"A positive example of how the economy and the state managed to mitigate and overcome this challenge together is the adoption of the so-called sliding scales. A positive introduction to solving this problem was proposed changes to the Law on Public Procurement by the Chamber of Commerce in cooperation with the competent directorate of the Ministry of Finance", said the PKCG.

The Chamber of Commerce then formed a Working Group for the preparation of Guidelines for the application of price difference recognition procedures based on construction contracts, which included representatives of the Ministry of Finance, the Administration for Capital Projects and Traffic, Monstat, the Chamber of Commerce, the Chamber of Engineering and the Faculty of Civil Engineering.

"The prepared document, after being sent to the Ministry of Capital Investments and the adoption of this information by the Government, became the basis for annexing the contract to the mutual satisfaction of both the state and businessmen," the announcement states.

In the previous months, significant activities of this sector were also focused on the preparation of the new legislative framework. Namely, the Ministry of Ecology, Spatial Planning and Urbanism prepared and published draft laws on spatial planning, construction of buildings and legalization of illegal buildings for public discussion.

Through its business representatives, the Chamber participated in the work of certain working groups for the preparation of this complex systemic legislative framework, as well as organized a round table as part of the public discussion, which aroused great interest from businessmen, not only those who perform activities in the field of construction, but also others, especially tourism, energy and road infrastructure.

"The basic expectations of the economy when it comes to the construction of the facility, i.e. design, revision, construction, supervision and use, was to shorten the administrative procedures as much as possible, eliminate unnecessary costs in the core of the investment and reduce them to an objective level, with the maximum reduction of the time required for the outcome documents from the state or local administration and public companies and state-owned companies, which are issued according to special regulations", the Chamber explained.

Also, the expectations of the economy are that a gap in space planning, i.e. the adoption of planning documents, must be avoided, with consequences for the economic system, i.e. economic subjects - investors.

"It is necessary to do everything to create a legislative framework so that in the post-corona era and the current crisis in the world, such legal solutions are formulated that, among other things, will result in attracting investments, i.e. creating favorable planning assumptions for the further construction of infrastructure projects, tourist capacities as well as facilities for production, processing and storage", according to PKCG.

The new legislative framework, as they stated, should be the basis for faster and more economical work on creating planning preconditions for economic development, because without an efficient spatial planning system and access to high-quality urban locations for economic development in a short period of time, it will not be possible to overcome the current moment in which the economy is.

"In order to achieve this, among other things, it is necessary to simplify procedures in order to shorten the time required to start construction and at the same time reduce costs for investors. Even in the legalization of illegal buildings, businessmen are of the opinion that procedures should be simplified, i.e. legalization should be done in the shortest way, through the preparation of a geodetic study, registration in the real estate cadastre, and paid duties, i.e. utilities, regional water supply, fees for usurped state land, fees for illegality - five percent of the value of utilities - for the development of urban rehabilitation plans, while leaving the issues of urban planning parameters for the next period", the announcement states.

The Chamber of Commerce submitted to the line ministry a general overview with recommendations on all three draft laws as well as a detailed opinion for each draft law individually, hoping that the submitted opinions will be a good basis for improving the texts of the draft laws and that the Chamber and the Ministry, through joint and partnership work, will provide businessmen , and of course to all citizens, good and acceptable laws.