Construction World May 2018

The Best Projects Awards ceremony 2017: a vibrant gathering of builders, engineers, architects and contractors in celebration of excellence.

COMMENT

It finds that general building confidence, at 36 index points, was flat. It was, however, encouraging to see that key underlying indicators ticked up. Across the cidb’s grades, grades 3 and 4 lost confidence but grades 5 and 6 gained confidence on the back of improved activity growth. Surprisingly, in the Western Cape confidence among building contractors remained above the neutral 50-point mark – 54. In the Eastern Cape, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal the situation was vastly different: on average confidence levels here were a mere 30 points. The confidence levels for civils was also at 36 during the first quarter of the year – it is one point better than 2017’s low fourth quarter. Activity and profitability managed to claw back from its worst levels since 2011Q1 and 2010Q3. At grades level, grades 5 and 6 had no confidence growth while in levels 7 and 8, there was significant confidence growth The Construction Industry Development Board (cidb) recently released its SME Business Conditions survey for general builders and civil contracts for the first quarter of 2018. About the survey The cidb SME business conditions survey is conducted quarterly among Grades 3 to 8 cidb- registered contractors (categorised in Grades 3 and 4, Grades 5 and 6, and Grades 6 and 8).

from 24 to 30. The four provinces that are measured had less than 40 index points for growth, which implies that business conditions are unfavourable across the country. First call for entries – Best Projects 2018 The first call for entries for Construction World’s Best Projects Awards can be found on pages 20 and 21. We have added two new categories and separated one category. The first new category is for ‘Emerging Contractors’ and aims to recognise excellence in the execution of projects by black- owned or women-owned enterprises (51%). The second new category is for Quantity Surveyors. Even though Quantity Surveyors play a vital role in projects, they are often unheralded in successful projects. This category aims to specifically highlight the role of QSs by creating a category just for them. We have separated the Professional Services category into a category for Consulting Engineers and one for Architects. As the competition has grown, so has the number of entries. We now get equal numbers of both professions entering. I look forward to receiving your entry.

Wilhelm du Plessis Editor

@ConstWorldSA

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EDITOR & DEPUTY PUBLISHER Wilhelm du Plessis constr@crown.co.za ADVERTISING MANAGER Erna Oosthuizen ernao@crown.co.za LAYOUT & DESIGN Lesley Testa CIRCULATION Karen Smith

PUBLISHER Karen Grant PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY Crown Publications cc P O Box 140 BEDFORDVIEW, 2008 Tel: 27 11-622-4770 • Fax: 27 11-615-6108

TOTAL CIRCULATION: (Fourth Quarter ’17) 5 024

The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the editor or the publisher. PRINTED BY Tandym Cape

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CONSTRUCTION WORLD MAY 2018