On May 20, the Verkhovna Rada voted in the first reading for the implementation of the 305th EU regulation on construction products
The new standards will cover all materials, from cable quality to cement and windows. They also now provide for liability for the sale of counterfeit goods. The adoption of the document was one of the requirements of the Ukraine-EU association.
The document not only introduces the declaration of product indicators by the manufacturer, provides the possibility of quality and origin control, but also establishes the responsibilities of all participants in the product supply chain.
The problem of counterfeiting in the construction sector is acute not only in Ukraine, but also in many countries around the world. In general, the share of construction products on the world market that do not meet standards is estimated at 5-7%.
At the same time, the situation in Ukraine is much worse. There are no official statistics on the level of counterfeiting due to the lack of effective market supervision, but expert assessments of specialized associations and manufacturers indicate an average share of counterfeit products of 20-25%.
The situation is even worse in certain categories of goods. For example, in the segments of cable products – it is estimated at 70%, window products – 70%, cement – 30%.
Starting in 2011, Ukraine began to transition from Soviet standards to European ones.
They reached the building materials market only in 2018, when mandatory certification of construction products was canceled, because it was planned to adopt European rules precisely through the implementation of provisions 305 of the regulation.
Since then, the market has been virtually left without control over counterfeit and dangerous products.
Ukrainians have found themselves in a situation where the level of counterfeiting in certain industries has reached catastrophic levels, experts say.
As an example, they cite the situation in the market of energy-efficient window systems. Market experts note that due to the lack of market control, a common case of counterfeiting is the sale of simple window systems under the guise of energy-efficient ones.
The problem of counterfeit, low-quality, and sometimes simply dangerous construction products is acute for ordinary consumers, as well as small and medium-sized businesses. It is these segments that are the most vulnerable, since they buy materials through retail chains, on the spontaneous market or from unofficial suppliers in small batches. Large developers still mainly work with manufacturers to reduce costs and have the opportunity to buy quality products in bulk.
It is possible to conditionally distinguish two types of construction products that can be considered counterfeit:
This is the so-called “unregistered” – the quality of the products is high, but it is sold “not quite” legally;
Low-quality counterfeit.
On the primary market, counterfeits are represented by “unregistered products”. In the regions, according to various estimates, it is more “home-made” products of local production.
According to developers, the adoption of new requirements will not significantly affect the cost of housing, unless the manufacturers themselves decide to allegedly play on the “certification” of their own products.
The adopted bill, on the one hand, allows a good developer to build qualitatively, and on the other hand, the buyer receives additional confidence in his own choice of a particular residential complex.
In addition, after the final adoption of the law, this should also have a positive effect on the activities of domestic manufacturers of building materials. Thanks to the new requirements, they have a real motivation to improve the quality of their products in order to potentially enter the European market.
Today, domestic building materials (primarily concrete and brick) are able to compete with imported analogues not only in quality, but also in price.
As for retail trade (for apartment and house renovations), it is quite possible that a number of manufacturers may increase prices for their already certified products, experts believe. But in most cases they will be based on existing demand.
In projects where developers offer apartments with already completed renovations, the quality of the renovations from the developer is at an acceptable level today, according to the developers.
Developers themselves are often reluctant to talk about the quality of the building materials used. This is understandable: because due to the not very high profitability of housing construction, each company, if possible, tries to reduce the estimated cost of construction.
“The explanation for the search for cheaper building materials is simple to cynical: today, on average, the profit of developers on the market is 25-30%, and broken down by the construction cycle (about 2 years), the profitability does not exceed 15%,” said Angelica Sahakyan, Marketing Director of the multifunctional residential complex Polaris Home & Plaza.
It is also worth mentioning that after the building is put into operation, it no longer belongs to the developer. In other words, reducing construction costs for many companies could become an additional source of profit.
According to builders’ estimates, now, for example, in Kyiv, only a little more than 50% of all housing being built can be considered high-quality precisely from the standpoint of the building materials used.
“The price for objects of the category “comfort-plus” and higher is initially 20-40% higher than, say, economy-class objects. And the increase in the cost of such objects is inextricably linked to the quality of building materials. The probability of using falsified products in cheap format facilities is many times higher,” says Anzhelika Sahakyan.
We will remind, according to analysts, prices on the primary housing market of Kyiv will not rise in the near future, and even on the contrary – will fall a little, but the demand for renting country houses, where people prefer to spend quarantine, is growing.
