The announcement of the award categories and jury for the sixth annual Central & Eastern European Real Estate Quality Awards (CEEQA) highlights the role of real estate agents as the hub of the market, with four new Agent of the Year categories, as nominations for the CEE property sector's elite industry awards were launched on Wednesday October 22, 2008 at the Corinthia Grand Hotel Royal in Budapest.
Organized by CEE Insight Forum in association with the Financial Times, the awards are given for performance and achievement in real estate across 10 countries in 2008, nominated by the sector and judged by a Jury of well known senior industry executives from leading investors, financiers, developers and consultants active in the sector as well as the Financial Times Property Editor, Daniel Thomas.
The categories also include the four new Agent Awards (Office Agency, Retail Agency, Industrial & Logistics Agency and Capital Markets Agency) as well as four Project Awards (Office, Retail, Industrial & Logistics and Hotel, Leisure & Residential Development of the Year), seven Company of the Year awards (Investor, Banking & Financial Services, Developer, Commercial & Construction Services, Legal & Accounting and Architect of the Year) and four Grand Awards (Lifetime Achievement, Industry Professional, Green Initiative and over all Building of the Year).
The launch of the 6th CEEQA nominations, held at the climax of TROPICAL STORM event in Budapest examining the impact of the global economic turbulence on the CEE property markets, was attended by over 100 of the sector's most important companies. Under the slogan "When the skies get darker the stars shine brighter" the full Jury and nominations procedure for the eighteen award categories were presented. The deadline for nominations is 28th November.
The events schedule of the 2008-9 programme includes two CEE Insight Forum events, including the TROPICAL STORM event itself, at which regional IMF head Christoph Rosenberg highlighted the dangers of the current downturn for the emerging European markets.
The second CEE Insight Forum event will be hosted at the Warsaw Hilton Hotel in Poland on 25th February. Entitled Sex & the City, the event will examine the scope and drive for more world class land mark buildings in Central & Eastern Europe, and is the curtain raiser to the annual CEEQA Gala later in the day, the same day the sector's flagship annual event which attracts 600 of the sector's key players, and last year raised over 100,000 euro for housing charity Habitat for Humanity.
The 6th CEEQA programme also includes a new series of CEE Business Leader Breakfast events to be hosted in Warsaw, Prague and Budapest in the last week of January, coinciding with the announcement of the short lists for the awards on 26th January 2009.
Richard Hallward, Managing Director of CEE Insight Forum and the CEE Real Estate Quality Awards, said: "It is important even in a more challenging market environment to recognise and reward outstanding business performance and the pursuit of quality, particularly in the CEE region where the built environment is being transformed following its entry into the private capital markets 19 years ago.
"This has been a very interesting year for the markets, to put it mildly," he continued, "and we certainly look forward to the seeing the award nominations. We are particularly pleased to introduce the new Agent of the Year award categories, the major agents are very much at the centre of the business and the expansion of the sector across the region, so it is undoubtedly helpful to the sector to characterize their role and contribution with four different awards."
Source: Imagine Events
