13th International Congress on Wooden House Construction has opened

10 / 03 / 2021

As part of Russian Construction Week, the 13th International Congress on Wooden House Construction has started. The event is organised by the Wood Housing Association and EXPOCENTRE AO with support of the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, Russian Ministry of Construction, Housing and Utilities.

The congress is attended by representatives of the relevant ministries and federal agencies, the Federation Council and the State Duma, construction companies, design and architectural offices, developers, manufacturers and suppliers of components for timber housing construction. Foreign experts also participate in the forum via video link. 

The agenda of the congress covers a wide range of topical issues. They include governmental measures for the development of wooden housing construction in Russia, and the synergy of a number of state programmes and strategies, increasing the volume of housing through wooden housing construction, updating the regulatory framework for wooden construction, modern architecture with wooden structures and much more.

The discussion began with a speech of State Secretary, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Viktor Evtukhov, who stated that wooden house construction, as a sector of the domestic timber industry, would demonstrate a significant growth.

At the end of 2019, he recalled, the commissioning of wooden houses was up 24% compared with 2018. This trend continued last year. According to a survey of major Russian manufacturers, demand for timber housing in 2020 increased by 30-40%. Many timber industry’s companies are still fulfilling the orders they received last season.

Viktor Evtukhov also said that last year, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, together with the Ministry of Construction, with the active participation of the industry community, carried out extensive work to update the regulatory and technical framework and approved codes of practice for multi-family residential buildings and public buildings using timber structures. It is planned, in particular, to use wooden house-building technologies in the construction of residential buildings and social and cultural facilities in the amount of at least 20%.  On the whole, according to Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, in the future wooden housing construction may account for at least 1% of Russia's GDP.

In the course of the discussion, the participants discussed state regulation, lending for wooden housing construction, pricing of construction materials and works, supplying the domestic market with timber, stimulating demand for individual housing construction, land issues of complex private housing construction, subsidising the purchase of wooden house kits and other important issues.

The congress runs till March 11.

The Russian Construction Week programme

Press Service, EXPOCENTRE AO

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