Germany’s entire exports of these products, which are mainly used in the construction sector, grew to 1,084,110 tonnes in 2023 from 992,584 the previous year, according to the latest data from Global Trade Tracker.
And the trend has continued in 2024, with exports of rebar and rod from Germany reaching 666,286 tonnes by the end of June.
Exports to six of Germany’s nine near neighbors – Poland, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, France, Belgium, and Denmark – increased year on year in 2023, according to Global Trade Tracker data, while shipments to Austria, Luxemburg and the Netherlands all declined.
While market participants said that increasing its rebar and rod exports to neighboring countries had helped Germany compensate for the weak performance of its domestic market, all construction sectors across Central and Northern Europe have faced difficulties. But some are developing better than Germany, Fastmarkets understands.
“High interest rates are limiting investment, so construction activity – particularly in the private sector – is not booming to say the least,” a German trader said.
Exports of German steel rebar and rod grew most significantly to the Polish market, reaching 298,903 tonnes in 2023, up by 125,569 tonnes from 173,334 tonnes in 2022, according to Global Trade Tracker.
And German rebar and rod exports to Switzerland reached 170,244 tonnes in 2023, up by 44,011 tonnes from 126,233 tonnes in 2022.
The exported volumes to Belgium almost doubled on an annual basis in 2023, reaching 38,500 tonnes, up by 18,591 tonnes from 19,909 tonnes the previous year.
In 2023, German exports of rebar and rod to the Czech Republic pushed up by 12,284 tonnes to 46,435 tonnes and shipments to France grew by 8,075 tonnes to 95,772 tonnes, with a slight increase in exports to Denmark.
Fastmarkets’ data, meanwhile, confirms that reduced volumes of German rebar and rod ended up in Austria in 2023, which had previously been a major export destination – shipments to Austria from Germany amounted to 149,641 tonnes in 2023, down by 93,153 tonnes from 242,794 tonnes in 2022.
Smaller declines of these steel products were also registered in the Netherlands and Luxembourg, while Germany’s exports of rebar and rod to Hungary also fell significantly. According to Global Trade Tracker data, Germany exported only 2,395 tonnes of rebar and rod to Hungary in 2023, down by 14,795 tonnes from 17,190 tonnes in 2022.
Germany’s construction sector
Germany’s index for production in construction fell to 91.5 in June 2024, down by 4.49% from 95.8 in June 2023, which was itself a 5.16% decline on the June 2021 figure of 101.0, according to the latest data from the European Commission’s Eurostat directorate on August 20.
Eurostat is currently taking 2021 as a reference year, which equals 100 points in the index. This was the year just before Russia’s attempted full-scale invasion of Ukraine, when construction activity in Europe was still relatively strong.
Overall sentiment in Germany’s construction sector remains negative, according to data from Fastmarkets analysts, with the decline in Germany’s index for production in construction directly coinciding with Russia’s attempted invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the subsequent war.
But despite similar declines in Germany’s neighboring markets, their index levels have remained slightly above 2021 levels, which suggests the construction sectors in those markets were developing a bit faster than Germany’s prior to the invasion, with Poland and Belgium good examples of EU countries outperforming Germany, according to Eurostat data.
In Poland, the index for production in construction fell to 103.7 in June 2024, down by 6.32% compared with 110.7 in June 2023. However, it was still above the level from June 2021, which stood at 102.1.
And in Belgium, the June 2024 index dropped to 99.7, down by 2.16% from 101.9 in June 2023. But, again, the index in Belgium was still higher than in Germany in June 2022, at 100.6 and in June 2021, at 100.0.
While overall expectations for 2024-2025 remain negative across all EU-27 construction sectors – which make up the largest steel-using sector in the EU and represent 35% of total steel consumption in the trading bloc – they are not quite as bad as previously expected, sources told Fastmarkets in the week to Friday.
Notably, construction activity across the EU-27 fell by a moderate 0.8% in 2023 and for 2024, according to European steel organization Eurofer, which said that construction activity would continue to decline this year, falling by 1.4% rather than its previous prediction of a 1.9% decline.
The sector is then expected to show a modest 1.8% growth in 2025 (albeit revised down from 2.7%), Eurofer added.
Expansion in Poland
Germany’s expansion in the Polish market can be seen in the 2023 financial report from European long steel producer Feralpi Group, which shows the company’s sales revenues were only increasing in Poland and “other countries” category.
Italy-based steelmaker Feralpi also has rebar production facilities in Riesa, Germany, which started offering rebar in the Polish market more actively last year.
Feralpi’s Riesa steelworks has 1 million tpy electric-arc furnace and can produce rebar and wire rod. The company has recently invested in a rebar mill capacity extension.
In 2023, Feralpi revenues from sales in Poland reached €60.02 million ($66.83 million), which represents a huge increase compared to 2022, when it was only €10.12 million.
At the same time, Feralpi registered declining revenues from sales to the domestic markets in Germany Italy, France, Switzerland, and Austria.
“Last year, Germany expanded strongly in the Polish market,” a distributor source told Fastmarkets, adding that this was mainly due to increased shipments by Feralpi. Before that, exports came mainly from the German division of Riva.
“Prices [for long steel products] from Riva and Feralpi are very competitive – even compared with the prices from Ukraine,” the source said. “Besides, [the German divisions of both companies] cover all the transport [costs], if necessary.”
A second distributor source told Fastmarkets that the quality of rebar offered by the German producers was “good and at competitive prices.”
The source added that local producers in Poland would probably adjust their offers so that they could keep the local market in their own hands.
Rebar from Germany was on offer to Poland at €625-635 per tonne CPT at the beginning of August. In comparison, Ukrainian material was heard offered to Poland at €570-580 per tonne DAP border, sources told Fastmarkets.
Recently, however, even lower import offers for German rebar were heard in Poland at €615-625 per tonne CPT.
Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for steel reinforcing bar (rebar) domestic, delivered Northern Europe, averaged at €654.62 per tonne in 2023, also proving that German offers could be quite competitive.
In comparison, the average yearly level of Fastmarkets’ weekly assessment for steel reinforcing bar (rebar) domestic, cpt Poland, stood at 2,932 zloty ($760) per tonne CPT in 2023, which equals to €682.92 per tonne, or this higher than the average price assessment in Northern Europe for last year.
At the same time, the volume of long steel products imported to Poland from Italy declined in 2023, according to Fastmarkets data, with just 60,961 tonnes arriving – down by 22,678 tonnes from 83,639 tonnes in 2022.
Published by: Julia Bolotova, Darina Kahramanova
