Alpine's Ionel Giugulea still has faith in constructions market

Ionel Giugulea (photo), general manager of Alpine Romania, the domestic subsidiary of Alpine Austrian group, has budgeted growth of around 10-15% for the following years, despite discouraging projections concerning the constructions market. The company, one of the most dynamic domestically, will reach turnover worth 80-85m euros this year, double last year’s level, owing to projects in progress projects, and in 2009 is expected to hit turnover worth around 90-95m euros, reads today’s edition of Business Construct monthly. “What we’re witnessing now is not a crisis situation, but a return to normality. (…)The 30% increase of the constructions market was not sustainable on long term, hence the market is reverting to a normal situation and there’s a huge amount of work in constructions. The crisis can last as long as five years and Romania won’t complain there’s no work in constructions,” Giugulea said. After having worked for one year and a half at the domestic unit of Austria’s Raiffeisen Evolution real estate developer, he returned to the general manager position at Alpine he had previously held because he felt constructions was a more dynamic field than the real estate one. Alpine Romania now holds projects worth 250m euros in its portfolio and has finalised 400m-euro turnkey projects.