Steel demand in Germany will not recover in 2024 – WV Stahl

Demand for steel in Germany will not recover this year, and its weak development reflects the country’s status as an industrial center, according to the German steel association WV Stahl.

According to the latest short-term forecast by Worldsteel, the industry association says that steel demand in the country will decline by 7% year-on-year in 2024, while in 2025 it will grow by slightly less than 6%.

Steel demand in the country is developing much weaker this year than expected in April, and there is no real recovery in 2025, said Dr. Martin Thüringer, Chairman of the Worldsteel Economic Committee and Managing Director of WV Stahl.

“The expected decline of another 7% to 26 million tons is an absolute minimum, which is almost 10% below even the level of the global financial crisis,” added Turinger.

According to him, the weak development of steel demand in the country reflects the alarming state of Germany as an industrial location and the pronounced weakness of investment in the construction sector, as well as in mechanical engineering and equipment manufacturing. Almost all steel-consuming industries are currently in a state of regression that will not end until 2025. Therefore, according to Thüringer, next year we should not expect anything more than a technical counteraction to the high losses of recent years.

Since 2017, the German steel market, according to WV Stahl, has lost about 35% of its volume, which is more than twice as much as the EU as a whole. At the same time, the global steel market grew by 7% from 2017 to 2024, driven by India and China. Germany dropped from sixth to ninth place in the ranking of the top steel markets.

“Germany has long been the engine and anchor of stability in the EU, but now it has become a brake. Worldsteel’s new short-term forecast is further proof of the urgency of economic measures to halt the rapid downward trend,” the industry association summarizes.

As GMK Center reported earlier, WorldSteel has downgraded its forecast for global steel demand in 2024. It is expected that these volumes will decrease by 0.9% compared to 2023 to 1.75 billion tons, while the previous forecast assumed an increase of 1.7% y/y – to 1.79 billion. At the same time, in 2025, global steel demand will grow by 1.2% y/y after three consecutive years of decline to 1.77 billion tons.