German rubber manufacturers see chance to reverse three years of steep decline

Frankfurt am Main, Germany – The ongoing decline in Germany's rubber industry can be reversed if competitive conditions are restored in the country and the EU, sector association WDK has asserted.

German tire and rubber product manufacturers are “loyal to their locations and willing to make local investments,” WDK president Michael Klein stated in a 6 March release.

According to Klein, the sector continues to invest “a high proportion” of its value creation in R&D and could “hold its own against increasingly tough international competition if the playing field was level.”

An important initial task for the next German government, he emphasised, was therefore to ensure that competitive conditions for EU companies “do not deteriorate further.”

Klein added that the changing political landscape, both in Germany and at the EU level, could offer an opportunity to “reverse the ongoing decline of the rubber industry in Germany.”

“To achieve this, every possible avenue for reducing bureaucracy must be exploited,” said the WDK leader, who called for EU support through standardising and eliminating regulatory reporting obligations.

He also called for greater involvement of medium-sized industrial companies in economic policy summits, lower taxation on corporate profits, and improved access to corporate financing.

Klein’s statement came in the wake of poor results delivered by the German rubber manufacturing industry in 2024.

Production fell 4.3% year-on-year overall to 1.1 million tonnes, reflecting a 4.3% decline in tire production to 450 kilotonnes (kt) and 4.4% decline in general rubber to 650kt.

This marked the third year in a row that domestic production declined in Germany by more than 4% year-on-year, pointed out Klein, adding that volumes are “now a quarter lower than they were 10 years ago.”

“Further cuts will be difficult to avoid this year, as more than one fifth of companies in the sector are planning to relocate production abroad,” according to the WDK’s latest member survey.

Overall industry sales dropped to €11.3 billion, down 1.1% compared to 2023, though combined investment by both tire and general rubber segments increased 1.4% to €740 million.

WDK's figures also show that employment dropped 4.4% year-on-year across the industry, with tires seeing a 2.1% decline to 18,400 people and general rubber down by 5.3% to 44,600 people.

At 76.6%, the overall utilisation rate was down 1.2% compared to last year: reflecting a mixed trend of improvement in the tire sector and decline in general rubber goods.

Tire industry capacity utilisation grew 8.1% over 2023 to 79.3% while general rubber goods utilisation rates fell 9.0% to 73.9%, according to the WDK data.