OT Forum: This year is the year of major infrastructure projects

2022 is expected to be a year of significant contracting and the beginning of construction sites for major infrastructure projects. With criteria of strengthening the resilience of the country’s critical infrastructure, reducing the environmental footprint of travel and accelerating growth, new generation projects are entering the implementation path.

The foundations were laid last year with the closing of key outstanding issues, such as the signatures for Athens Metro Line 4 and highway E65, but also a series of tenders that turned on building machines. Projects amounting to 3.2 billion euros were contracted in the previous two years, while projects of 6.5 billion euros are in an advanced tender process throughout the country.

But the Russian invasion of Ukraine is once again clouding the landscape, as the spike in material prices worries the construction sector and creates a climate of uncertainty about the timeliness and viability of contracts signed earlier.

But this is not the first time that things have changed for the construction industry. After the complete collapse of the economic crisis and when the industry saw light at the end of the tunnel, the pandemic brought reasonable delays, but also price increases, which to some extent escalated over time. The duration of the new great crisis of the war in Europe will largely determine the developments, with the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport being on standby, in order to take measures if necessary.

The challenges, the new financial tools and the role of the Recovery Fund for the infrastructure sector, whose economic multiplier in Greece is at 1.8, will be presented at the Conference with the general title “The Changing World”, which is organized on March 29 and 30, 2022 by OT.