Construction sector in need of security

About 60 per cent of Mainzeal Property and Construction's workload is for the Government.

Peter Gomm, chief executive of the Queen St-headquartered business, says this amounts to work worth about $280 million.

Mainzeal's biggest jobs are in the electricity, health, education, sport and liquor sectors, he says.

The state will be the biggest construction sector employer for "the foreseeable future" and Gomm says the private sector's return to market dominance will not occur until changes to high levels of economic uncertainty and a market lacking confidence.

Mainzeal's move away from reliance on big state jobs will happen once the general economy improves, he predicts. "We have growing private sector client support across the industrial and retail sectors as the economic indicators improve. We are also creating capacity for growth in selected infrastructure growth sectors."

He says the most important challenges facing the sector are the need for the Government to provide more certainty around the pipeline of work which would remove the lumpy nature of jobs; rationalising regulatory approval processes; encouraging foreign direct investment and the need for the growing pile of KiwiSaver contributions to be invested in infrastructure. Long-term funding for private property development is hampering that sector's recovery, he says.

Anne Gibson