Testing the waters

The number of Christmas presents sent by business partners? Or maybe the number of acquaintances I’ll bump into on March 11th on the Warsaw to Nice flight, on my way to MIPIM? Is any item on this list a good measure of the investment climate in Poland? Or perhaps it would be better to go on Amazon and see if I can buy a crystal ball? One way of gauging the situation in our markets is to read some of the reports on the individual real estate sectors we’ve prepared for you for this month’s issue. Or, you could take a look at the interview with Pavel Trenka and Stanislav Frňka of HB Reavis. So what test does the head of the Slovakian developer use to judge the business mood in a given market? When he flies to a particular country on a working day, he simply takes note of the plane’s occupancy level. In February, when he was flying to Warsaw for his interview with us, the business class seats were empty. It was a completely different story back in 2010–2011. Should we worry? Well, he didn’t seem so concerned. The Slovaks’ appetite for new projects, both on their home soil as well as in Poland, Budapest and Western Europe – e.g. London and Germany – seems unabated. And by the way, I’m happy that capital is at last not only flowing in one direction: from Western to Central and Eastern Europe, but is now also going in the opposite direction. A similar westward bound strategy has been adopted by Panattoni Europe and MLP Group, among others. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for developers’ appetites to grow even further – and not only for the Bavarian draft beer and fish & chips at trade fairs.