During the last weekend took place at Kecskemét, near Budapest - Hungary, the first reunion of construction journalists in the Central and Eastern Europe, in a new partnership formula called Building Connections. At the initiative of editorial team of Magyar Építők, a group of specialized publications in the above-mentioned region decided to start a professional cooperation consisting - in the first stage - in sharing the general interest stories/features in every country on the common website. The reunion took place at Four Points by Sheraton Hotel. In the opening, the state secretary László Mosóczi who represented Hungarian Minister for Information and Technology László Palkovics addressed a message to the guests. The Hungarian official emphasized that “the national construction sector grew by 85% percent between 2016 and 2018 and its ratio in the GDP is on the rise as well. This momentum can be depended on to continue in the next years, since the sector can count on 25 thousand billion forints (EUR 77 billion) in purchase orders from all sources combined”. Also, he mentioned that „it is of great importance to share information, for everyone interested to know about the developments in the construction sectors of countries close to their borders – as well as ones farther away. The dynamic growth the sector is undergoing right now makes technological innovation necessary, which can be favored by cooperation from media outlets from separate countries”.

 

The works continued with presentations from the participating publication, namely: Magyar Építők - Hungary, Vestnik Stroitel - Bulgaria, Starmuehler Agentur und Verlag - Austria, Nova24 TV and Demokracija - Slovenia, Alfa TV and kurir.mk - Macedonia, Agenda Constructiilor & Fereastra - Romania and Budyvelny Journal - Ukraine. Following the seminar, the participants set up a 21 points long document constituting the foundation of the future cooperation. In order to achieve the assumed goals, a nonprofit organization was created. Ákos Szabó, managing editor of magyarepitok.hu, was elected as president of the new organisation and Reneta Nikolova (editor-in-chief of Vestnik Stroitel of Bulgaria) was elected as the first vice president. The next Building Connections conference is going to be held in Bulgaria in May 2020. On the second day of the event, the journalists participated in a press tour of Puskás Stadium in Budapest. The projecf, which is the largest construction development in the country in the last few decades, is nearing completion and is being built exclusively by Hungarian corporations. The general construction work of the 65,000 seats arena is undertaken by Magyar Építő Corporation and ZÁÉV Corporation, structural work is done by West Hungária Bau Ltd. and Épkar Corporation, steel structures were the responsibility of KÉSZ Ltd, and technical inspection work was undertaken by Óbuda Group Corporation and Főber Corporation. The conference ended with a tour of BudaPart. The new city district developed by Property Market on 53 hectares of land is being built in 6 steps where altogether 600 thousand square meters of office and living space is being constructed. The 11 stories high BudaPart Gate office tower is going to be finished by the end of the year. The general contractor is Market Corporation and project management tasks are underatken by Spányi Partners Corporation.