Businesses involed in construction raw materials and residential home-decoration saw only slight growth this year and face the prospect of more of the same in the coming year.

This is the result of a slow-down in the property sector - especially residential housing - according to an expert.

Ivan Kovarik, managing director of Elephant-brand gypsum-producer Siam Indus-try Gypsum, said the company saw 5-per-cent growth this year as a result of slight growth in construction of new housing.

The signals are for similar slight growth in 2007 and, as a result, the company has adjusted growth targets from a double-digit average of 10 per cent to 5 per cent in the next year.

Sales growth this year fell from a target of 10 per cent to 7 per cent.

Siam City Cement hopes to maintain its domestic sales growth next year in the face of strong competition and slight demand-growth only, according to executive director Chantana Sukumanont.

"We will expand our export markets in the next year because these have better potential growth than the domestic market," she said.

The property market is on pace to report a 16-per-cent drop in unit growth this year and a 6-per-cent fall in value when compared with 2005, according to property consultant Agency for Real Estate

Affairs.

Its managing director, Sopon Pornchokchai, said demand for new housing had continued to grow but home buyers had delayed purchase decisions in the third quarter of this year.

This was a result of political uncertainty and a rises in the cost of living caused by climbing interest rates and oil prices.

Home buyers reduced spending from an average of Bt3.08 million per unit last year to Bt2.7 million this year. That saw a fall in total housing value of 6 per cent this year.

"When the property sector drops, that has a negative im-pact on related industries in-cluding construction materials, home decoration, bathroom accessories and so on," Sopon said.

"As a result property-sector related businesses will show slight growth or maybe even a fall this year and next."

Somluck Srimalee

The Nation