The war destroyed hopes for stabilizing the situation on the building materials market in the near future
Currently, we are experiencing a significant shortage of building materials. First of all, these are fittings and metal products, mineral wool and ceramic blocks, building mixtures, and more.
There are significant difficulties with the availability and supply of cable products. There is a large shortage of pipes of various diameters and purposes, primarily steel pipes. It will also not be possible to fully compensate for the deficit through imports due to complicated logistics.
I will note that the main part of the cement plants remained more or less intact. That is, cement, sand, granite and crushed stone are on the market. But there are big problems with glass. There are also difficulties with ceramic bricks, because there were a lot of plants in Sumy and Hostomel.
Now they are destroyed. Problems are also expected with ceramic tiles, because Kharkiv is being bombed all the time. And the largest tile production enterprise in Ukraine is located there. There will also be a shortage of bitumen due to the loss of the Kremenchuk refinery.
Objective reasons undoubtedly determine the increase in prices for building materials. The main factors in this process can be considered the exchange rate, the costs of new logistics, the shortage of labor and, of course, demand, which will constantly grow.
Currently, I am extremely cautious about the initiatives of some of my esteemed colleagues who are making proposals for administrative regulation of prices for basic construction materials, since both theory and practice show that any artificial regulation only leads to an aggravation of the deficit.
We need to look for other mechanisms and methods to overcome the deficit. That is why the National Expert Construction Alliance of Ukraine is working in this direction.
Viktor Leshchynsky, President of the National Expert Construction Alliance of Ukraine
