International Real Estate Conference

Ending on September 19th, 120 leaders from Deloitte EMEA`s (Europe, Middle East and Africa) Real Estate and Construction areas met for two days at the International Real Estate and Construction Conference at the Sheraton Hotel in Lisbon.

The meeting initiated discussions amongst participants on new trends and the sharing of experiences and insights contributing to a collaborative vision for this practice.

The European Recovery

For Jean-Paul Loozen, the EMEA Real Estate & Construction Industry leader in Deloitte, "the volume of real estate investment reveals strong growth trends. According to the latest projections, it is expected, for 2014, an overall increase of 25% (Americas), 15% (EMEA) and 10% (Asia Pacific), resulting in an overall expected volume of 700 billion ".

Main markets include the UK, Germany and France where it has observed an overall growth of 25% in the 2nd half of 2013.

Why invest in Portugal    

Competitiveness, communications, a favorable legal and fiscal framework, increased investment and foreign investment, economic recovery and quality of construction were some of the arguments presented by the host partner Jorge Marrão. "Portugal has recently climbed 15 places in the global competitiveness ranking from 2014 to 2015, reaching the 36th position as a result of the reforms implemented in recent years," he said.

On investment, in the first quarter alone, the country had an influx of new investment, estimating 79% in retail and 21% offices. This investment was almost entirely secured by foreign investors from around the world.

According to Jorge Marrão, "investment attraction and promotion of the country must be aligned with the same goal".  And these key shared ideas about Portugal suggest:

• Portugal is inexorably a place to invest in the near future: the impact of economic recovery (in the Real Estate sector) and the reorientation of construction companies to explore foreign markets are an opportunity to attract non-traditional sources of capital;
• Investors still have a challenge of removing obstacles, through agreements with major financial institutions (banks) and local businesses, benefiting the necessary process of reducing private debt;
• Investors can capitalize on Portugal`s new consumer trends in tourism and leisure tourism;
• And the exploration of a new base of shareholders for the Portuguese economy – Capital from the Chinese, French, US, Brazil and Angola, among others;

Beyond the vision of the country, the international panel also consisted of presentations on emerging markets and the state of the art in Europe and the rest of the world. There was still room for the presentation on analytical tools linked to the Real Estate & Construction industry.

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