2008, our first year of activity for OPWAY Engenharia, as a result of the incorporation of SOPOL, S.A., into OPCA, S.A., took place in a climate of great instability of the financial, exchange and raw material markets, as a result of the liquidity and confidence crisis in the economy, and with the Civil Construction and Public works Sector registering, for the seventh consecutive year, a drop in turnover.
Contrary to expectations which suggested that 2008 would see the end of an adverse period that had dragged on for six years, gross output in the construction and public works sector again fell last year, by 3.1% according to figures from the Portuguese Federation of Construction and Public Works (FEPICOP).
FEPICOP also report that the decline in activity was felt particularly in the house building segment, with a fall of about 10.3% in 2008. The accumulated fall in the last seven years is nearly 40% in real terms. This new decline is due to the underlying fall in investment in housing, caused by a marked drop in demand, itself inherent to the worsening financial and funding circumstances that families find themselves in, in the current highly unstable and insecure economic climate.
The ‘Construction Works’ segment is the only one to have made a positive contribution to production value for the sector. This is estimated to have grown 3% in 2008, after 6 years of falling output. This was foreseeable given the number and worth of works for which tenders were submitted in 2007, but it nonetheless fell short of expectations in terms of production, given the usual delays in contracts being awarded.
Despite all these circumstances OPWAY Engenharia managed to end 2008 with a turnover of around €444.5 M. This is 28.9% up on 2007, for the total turnover of OPCA, SA and SOPOL, SA, and 4.1% higher than the €427 M turnover calculated.

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