While EU plywood manufacturers have been very actively engaged in raising anti-dumping concerns with the European authorities to boost market prospects for their own products, the signs are this has yet to raise domestic production levels.<\/p>\n
Data for EU wide production of plywood in 2025 is not yet available, but production in Finland, a leading supplier, is projected to have fallen 5% last year, impaired by high raw material and production costs and continuing market volatility.<\/p>\n
The combined effects of import stockpiling in advance of the definitive anti-dumping duties and weak activity in the European construction sector have dampened overall demand. Construction activity has been slow in Europe in the last twelve months, and the latest data suggests this trend is set to continue.<\/p>\n
The latest PMI data from S&P Global indicates that eurozone construction activity was contracting in the first quarter of this year.<\/p>\n
The PMI posted 44.6 in March, well below the 50.0 threshold separating growth from contraction, and falling from 46.0 in February, signaling that activity continued to fall sharply, with the rate of contraction accelerating, and pointing to deteriorating conditions in each of the last 47 months.<\/p>\n
The rate of decline in the eurozone construction PMI in March was the sharpest seen for five months and accompanied by the most pronounced reduction in new order intakes since last October. The reduction came amid rapid inflation in input prices during March, with inflation at the highest level since November 2022.<\/p>\n
Firms often pointed to surging energy prices as a key factor behind the acceleration following the outbreak of war in the Middle East. The conflict also led firms to be pessimistic regarding the outlook for the coming year, sharply reversing a brief spell of more positive sentiment seen in February.<\/p>\n
The three largest eurozone economies all recorded declines in construction output during March. France registered the strongest decrease, the strongest in a yearand-a-half. Italian construction companies saw a renewed and solid decline, while construction activity in Germany bucked the wider trend to record a slower reduction.<\/p>\n
Similarly in the UK, the S&P Global Construction Sector PMI stood at 45.6 in March, well below the neutral 50.0 value for the fifteenth month in a row. March data indicated a solid reduction in UK construction output, albeit at a slightly less marked pace than in the previous month. Residential work remained by far the weakestperforming category.<\/p>\n
The latest UK survey also suggested that operating margins were under considerable pressure from a rapid acceleration in input cost inflation. Construction companies widely noted that the war in the Middle East had pushed up fuel, transportation and raw material prices.<\/p>\n
They also cited falling confidence among clients and a lack of new project starts.<\/p>\n
One of the few bright spots for the European plywood trade is that freight rates have remained quite low and stable over the last twelve months. According to the Drewry's World Container Index, rates from Shanghai to Genoa are currently hovering around US$3,071 per 40ft container, while rates to Rotterdam are at around US$2,147 per 40ft container. The latter rate has remained broadly stable since September last year and is down from US$3450 in July 2025 and from rates exceeding US$8000 a year earlier in 2024.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":98589,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5204,4715],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news","category-market-analysis","topic-wood-products","topic-wood-based-panels","area-europe","area-global"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n