SURVEY: How nearshoring manifests itself in the Czech Republic

In Systems of Logistics 211/2024, they deal with the topic of nearshoring. How does nearshoring manifest itself in the field of logistics and supply chain directly in the Czech Republic? They asked selected experts this question.

Ondřej Míček, Savills Czech Republic & Slovakia:

In the Czech Republic, nearshoring manifests itself, for example, in the demand of manufacturing companies for industrial premises. In the first quarter of this year, manufacturing accounted for 52 percent of the total volume of demand, logistics was second with 27 percent. A positive aspect is that, in most cases, production also brings a different level of added value than storage.

Martin Baláž, Prologis:

From the position of a logistics real estate developer, we observe this trend, especially from the point of view of the development of demand for our buildings from international or domestic companies that plan to serve foreign markets from the Czech Republic. Such developments naturally cause land prices and rents to rise in our country, which of course greatly affects the planning and investments of developers. In terms of optimizing operations or investing in efficiency and robotics, I think we would see these trends regardless of nearshoring, as they are very closely related to the tough competitive environment in the market and the ongoing labor shortage.

Jitka Kocálová, Raben Logistics Czech Republic:

In our view, nearshoring as such is particularly suitable for the logistics of automotive parts, electronics, and other products that are subject to strong domestic regulation and are prone to more frequent outages.

Jiří Kristek, Cushman & Wakefield:

For the real estate sector, this trend means an expected increase in demand for industrial premises from manufacturers. In the Czech Republic, their share of the total volume of tenants has been around 30 to 40 percent in recent years, and now it is likely to grow. Within the region, the main “competitor” for the Czech Republic is Poland, which is its largest industrial market. Outside the region, considerations of moving production are turning to southern European countries with cheaper labor, especially Spain and Portugal, and geographically close Turkey and Morocco.

Tomáš Novotný, Concens Investments:

I think that great emphasis will now be placed on the possibility of multimodal accessibility of individual industrial sites. It is necessary to ensure strategic redundancy, and this is beginning to be reflected in the demand parameters for new developments. The Czech Republic has long been at a high level in terms of workforce qualifications. However, resources are dwindling, so I believe that we will have to focus on less key locations for the time being, where the availability of labor is still sufficient, and abandon the long-term patronized and desecrated locations in order to be able to satisfy the demand for labor. Again, it will be a compromise in combination with transport accessibility. In my opinion, we are on the threshold of a concept that is being implemented in housing in Germany, and that is the 15-minute principle, where everything should be available within a maximum of 15 minutes of travel. Maybe new strategic locations will be created where more key investors and their supply chains will be located so that, with exaggeration, this principle of 15 minutes will also be fulfilled in this case.

Jakub Trnka, Raben Logistics Czech Republic:

In connection with this, we observe a partial shift away from Asian suppliers and expect this trend to continue. Nevertheless, Asian countries, led by China, will certainly continue to play an important role in global supply chains. Commercial transport has recently been disrupted, for example, by attacks on maritime transport in the Red Sea by the Houthis, which forced car manufacturers Tesla and Volvo to suspend part of their production in Europe.

You can read the whole article here.
Source: systemylogistiky.cz
Author of the survey: Stanislav D. Břeň