A COMPREHENSIVE OVERVIEW OF THE CURRENT DUTCH LOGISTICS MARKET.

1. This year, the logistics market has turned out to have extremely strong foundations. Export recovered by +32.6% in the second quarter of 2021 compared to the same quarter the year before, and sales of online retail increased explosively in 2021.
2. As a result, the total take-up volume in the first half of 2021, was 40% higher than in the first half of 2020. Among e-commerce businesses, the take-up rose by 33%.
3. At national level, logistics stock has also increased considerably over the past few years. However, this rose more steeply in hotspots outside the major cities, due to limited space in existing hotspots.
4. The amount of land to be allocated dropped by 18% between 2016 and 2020. Consequently, very limited land is available for last mile developments in particular, partly also due to the strong competition from other uses such as housing.
5. Due to the location of major business parks and ports close to the city such as Westpoort in Amsterdam, the cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam still have space available for last mile occupiers. In the contours of The Hague and Utrecht, however, that is much less the case, as the availability on existing business parks is very limited.
6. Overall, there is a true ‘war on land’ going on, as the demand for both residential and logistics space is sharply increasing near Dutch cities while available plots grow increasingly scarce.
7. Due to the scarcity of land and the continued growth of the sector, interest in logistics property from investors keeps rising. For example, it seems that logistics will become the largest investment category in H1 in terms of investment. volume.

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