Germany’s steel and metal working industries cannot be happy with their performance in the first half-year, says their federation WSM.
Production at the circa 5,000 mostly small and medium-sized fabricators in H1 was 3.4% lower than in the corresponding 2024 period, Kallanish hears from WSM. Towards the end of the first quarter, the year-on-year drop appeared to become narrower, with March down only 0.4% y-o-y. That did not turn into a trend, despite some positive signals like a 2.4% month-on-month growth from May to June.
Order intake also does not look promising.
WSM managing director Christian Vietmeyer has used the release of the figures as an occasion to once more call on policymakers to take measures. The standstill is being caused by well-known brakes on economic activity in Germany, he says, citing painful energy prices and taxes, snail-slow approval procedures, bureaucratic hurdles, lack of incentives for investment, and outdated infrastructure.
“The time of hesitation must be over,” he says with an eye on the new government, which has now been in office for 100 days – normally a cornerstone to take stock of a new government’s performance. “Small and medium-sized industries now need a ‘hot autumn’ with fast political decisions that reinforce competitiveness,” Vietmeyer asserts.
Christian Koehl Germany
