Cefic’s November Chemical Trends Report is out!

EU27 Chemical Production Up for First Time in Six Quarters but Overall Production Level Remains Low

Since the rebound in 2021, the global industry production has only shown weak growth. Stress factors which continue to affect European business include external supply and demand developments, energy costs, high interest rates and inflation. With policy perspectives pointing in a direction of increasing EU transformation costs, dependencies on narrow technology choices with patchy subsidies, the European chemical industry is facing the third largest significant decline in output among EU27 energy-intensive industries.

Yet there’s hope on the horizon. The latest economic survey clearly shows an improvement in the confidence in the EU27 chemical industry. In October 2023, chemicals production expectations improved for the third month in a row. For the first time in six quarters, EU27 chemical production saw a slight increase of 0.5% in the third quarter of 2023 versus the second quarter of the same year. The current production level (Q3-2023) is 10% below 2019, which was already a recession year for the EU27 chemical industry.

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