Global Financial Crisis To Drive Large Construction Companies Out Of Bulgaria

Bulgaria's 2008 top construction entrepreneur Nikolay Pehlivanov predicted Wednesday that the global financial crisis was going to drive large construction companies out of the Bulgarian market.In his words, the multinational companies and investment funds would be hit hard by the effects of the crisis because their costly large-scale projects would affect their competitiveness.At the same time, however, the crisis had decreased the cost of construction projects in Bulgaria by an average of 20% as the prices of construction materials and labor have gone down in the recent months.In addition, speculators are willing to reduce the prices of the real estate property by up to 50% in order to complete their deals quickly.However, Pehlivanov also predicted that the consumers would hardly see any decrease in the prices of the end products on the construction market because the entrepreneurs would not be willing to reduce the prices of the projects already under construction, and because few new projects were being launched.In his view, the construction companies would change their strategies by concentrating on small-scale projects, or on the gradual construction of large-scale projects.Pehlivanov said the construction companies that had made large initial investments but were late to realize their projects were the most threatened by the effects of the global crisis.Nikolay Pehlivanov is the CEO of Green Life Property Development. He has been selected Bulgaria's 2008 top construction entrepreneur by the Bulgarian Chamber of Construction Entrepreneurs.