At CEDER 2023, CBRE’s presentation of the industrial and logistics market was, in their own terms, “unapologetically optimistic”. CBRE’s data, presented by Luiza Moraru, Head of Property Management CEE, EMEA Client Management and Mihai Pătrulescu, Head of Investment Properties, showed that 73% of occupiers in Europe intended to expand their logistics footprint over the next 3 years, and Romania appeared poised to become an important player on the market given its position, the recently accelerated development of its network of highways, its relatively stable economy, and the availability of a competitive workforce.
Jeroen Fabry, Business Unit Manager CEE at H Essers, who has been in Romania for 16 years, thinks that there is “huge potential in Romania. If you look [from the] logistic point of view, it did not become yet a hub. […] We have Constanța, we have the Danube, we will have infrastructure. […] In the moment that you can make easier connection points, there is a willingness to think centralized.” Referencing his home country of Belgium as a central hub for Western Europe, the expert said that Romania had the potential to become “an entrance” for Eastern Europe.
As a response to this, Ana Dumitrache, Managing Director of CTP Romania pointed out that, in her opinion, Romania was already becoming a hub. She said: “CTPark Bucharest West, […] it’s an industrial park in the pure sense of the word, and it’s working for ESSERS and for other owner-occupiers who are there, and also for us as landlords and so on. [It is] becoming a hub for the region. We have operations, MAERSK has started with 75,000 sqm, they are now at 100, they are delivering [to] Turkey, Middle East, the whole region. PEPCO started 1st of April with Kuehne+Nagel delivering to the whole region again. It’s public knowledge we’re building for LPP the same regional coverage, so everybody is doing the regional coverage from there.”
