Slow sales and depressed prices the challenges for European plywood sector

European plywood businesses describe their market over the last year as being characterised by slow sales and depressed prices. The predicted lowering of inflation and interest rates through 2024, they say, should help ease pressures. However, on the downside tougher times are predicted in the construction sectors of leading European economies. At the same time, driven in part by terrorist attacks on shipping in the Suez Canal, freight rates, which fell significantly post-Covid, have been on the rise again. So, the jury is out on whether the year ahead will see any marked improvement in the plywood trade ...