Economic Recovery Drives Industrial Space Take Up

A rise in economic activity has driven the take-up of industrial space to a record high in the third quarter of 2014, according to a new report from property consultants Savills Ireland.

It says Ireland’s GDP has grown more than twice as quickly as that of Luxembourg, the next best performing economy in the Eurozone.

But Savills has said the standard GDP growth measure actually understates the demand for industrial sheds.

Savills Director of Research Dr. John McCartney said: "Because goods need to be warehoused both on their way into and out of the country, the national accounting convention of netting imports against exports understates the demand for logistics space. A better measure is the additive total of goods exports and imports which has risen by 8.5% in the last year. This has turbo-charged the demand for sheds, leading to a record take up of approximately 90,000 sq m in Q3 2014."

The report predicts this take-up to continue through the remainder of this year due to the imminent expiry of Capital Gains Tax (CGT) incentives on 31 December.

(IT/CD)