The Romanian industrial and logistics market ended a less than stellar first quarter, with total leasing transactions of storage spaces more than halving in 1Q19.
Still, robust private consumption fueling demand for warehouses and our own pipeline suggest that the second part of the year should be more dynamic; indeed, last year’s fourth quarter alone accounted for half of 2018’s activity.
As a special theme for this quarter, we analyzed the regional intensity of national freight transport operations based on the quantity of goods loaded and the results underscore big discrepancies. Indeed, the most active 7 regions (including Bucharest) add up to one third of the total quantity of transported goods each year, whereas the 7 least active counties scrape together just about 6% of the total market. We expect these regional hubs to continue expanding nicely over the longer term and also expect at least one strong center to emerge in the region of Moldova over time.