The European Parquet Federation (FEP) announced that after a good year in 2022, which consolidated the level reached during a booming 2021, the European parquet market experienced a significant drop of 30.5 percent in 2023. Decreases were observed on all European markets, reflecting the decline in construction activity, high interest rates, lack of consumer confidence, and unfair competition.

Taking into account the total production in Europe (FEP countries and non-FEP countries in Europe) implies that production in 2023 dropped by 29.52 percent to 64.74 million m2. The 2023 total parquet production per type remains similar to the picture already presented since 2010, whereby multilayer comes in first with 84 percent (compared to 83 percent in 2022), followed by solid at 14 percent (compared to 15 percent in 2022) and mosaic with a stable 2 percent of the total cake.

In absolute production figures by country, Poland maintains its top position at 18.18 percent. Austria with 14.47 percent keeps the second place on the podium and Sweden the third (11.86 percent). Italy takes the fourth position from Germany which ranks seventh. In terms of consumption per country, Germany remains first despite a declining share at 17.44 percent. Italy at 13.35 percent and Sweden at 11.06 percent complete the podium followed by France at 10.44 percent. Regarding per capita parquet consumption, Austria, Switzerland, Estonia, Croatia, and Sweden lead the ranking.

The usage of wood species in 2023 indicates that the share of oak increases slightly to 83 percent compared to 82.1 percent in 2022. Tropical wood species represent a stable 2 percent of used wood (although the category “other” at 3.2 percent could, partly, be added to tropical wood). Ash and beech are still the two other most common chosen species with 4.5 percent and 2.7 percent respectively.

The year 2024 is expected to be stable with a low level of consumption. The sector seems to have reached a bottom where it could remain for some time.

In general, the situation continues to be difficult on the European parquet markets although some signs – slightly positive – point to a stabilization of the consumption in the coming months. However, interest rates remain high and construction activity subdued along with competition from outside the EU. Delivery times in the European parquet industry have returned to the pre-Covid level.

In this context, FEP welcomes the European Commission’s decision to initiate an anti-dumping investigation against imports of multilayer parquet from China. The FEP says this action comes as a necessary step to level the playing field in the EU market given the unfair prices of Chinese parquet imports as a result of significant overcapacity and structural distortions in their market.

Source:  FEP