El Salvador’s construction sector on course to return to pre-pandemic levels this year

El Salvador’s construction chamber (Casalco) forecasts that the sector’s contribution to GDP could return to pre-pandemic levels this year. 

The executive director of the chamber, José Antonio Velásquez, said the figure during the first half of the year reached US$836mn, but the amount could double by the end of 2022.

“We as a guild had a forecast of around US$1.5bn, but if the tendency continues, we will close [the year] with US$1.672bn … We made this forecast based on statistics of previous years. This means that we would have 10% growth compared to 2021,” Velásquez was quoted as saying by local paper La Prensa Gráfica. 

In 2019, before the pandemic, the contribution was US$1.609bn. 

According to Casalco, due to the increase in home refurbishments and expansions, more than 38,000 bags of cement have been consumed this year compared to 34,448 bags in 2019.