Construction companies request the maintenance of Non-Road Diesel

After a historic drop in activity of around 14% in 2020, the business outlook for construction companies remains worrying, despite "France relaunch". In fact, calls for tenders from local authorities are still struggling, the municipal and inter-municipal blocks respectively recording decreases of - 27% and - 37% in January 2021 compared to January 2020. As for private markets, permits in housing as in non-residential show respective falls of 15% and 20% in 2020.

Another warning sign: construction is one of the sectors that has made the most use of State Guaranteed Loans (PGE), as well as various loans over the past year, which testifies to a very deteriorated cash flow situation. , especially VSEs / SMEs.

In addition, the government's commitment made in 2019 to implement non-road fuel with a specific color for construction, after the elimination of access to RNG for the sector, cannot be respected on July 1, 2021. In Indeed, the latest hypotheses presented by the Ministry of Ecological Transition show a period necessary for its implementation of nearly 24 months. A fortiori, the two meetings held with all the representatives of the State and the professional organizations concerned did not lead to an acceptable solution for the construction and public works companies.

Finally, the provisions contained in the climate and resilience bill are already the subject of serious concerns in the sector, in particular the abolition of the internal consumption tax on energy products (TICPE) for the transport of goods, which will come. reinforce the surge in input prices from which construction companies and their customers have suffered since December 2020. The availability on the market of ecological means of transport at an affordable price and truly operational is a conditional element of this abolition. It is regrettable that such conditionality does not apply to RNG, even though the aim pursued is the same!

This is why, in the current context, construction companies are asking for a gesture of common sense from the government to support activity in a sector which employs nearly 1,7 million people.