Activity in the Italian domestic construction industry is becoming increasingly slow, forcing Italian long steel producers to issue further discounts compared to official offers. This further decrease in rebar prices in May has brought average quotations in Italy to their lowest level of 2012, seen in February and March.
Forecasts for rebar prices in the domestic market are anything but positive. The key issues are the apparent imminent downtrend of scrap prices and the necessity for long steel suppliers to increase their business in the domestic market. Indeed, the Ramadan period which starts in mid-July this year is about to freeze export activity to North African countries such as Algeria as early as the second half of June.
While Italian long steel producers may be hoping that Italian building activity may provide, at least temporarily, sufficient support to mantain both rebar outputs and quotations at decent levels, the Italian national statistics institute Istat has recently reported bad news as regards the confidence indicators for the domestic construction industry.
€1 = $1.25