The global Calcium Carbonate market is scripting divergent tales in key markets. While price stability has dominated Germany amidst economic uncertainty, Malaysia is witnessing price squeeze due to sluggish demand and excess supply. With the onset of the second quarter of 2025, regional stories are impacting market sentiment and guiding trading plans.

In early April, the German Calcium Carbonate market was robust. This stability in price was despite macroeconomic challenges and a lackluster construction sector. The German manufacturing sector was a stabilizing factor, continuing to draw steady volumes of Calcium Carbonate to be used in plastics, paint, paper, and rubber. Industrial-grade material prices quoted at close to USD 275/MT (CFR Hamburg).

Home manufacturers managed to do business at usual levels with the assistance of manageable raw material prices and efficient logistics even in the presence of light delays owing to port bottlenecks. Most suppliers used inland transportation modes like trucks and rail to ensure continuity of supply. Input prices were quite stable, adding to unchanaged Calcium Carbonate price levels in the context of otherwise damped economic mood.

Despite ongoing contraction in residential construction, the wider construction landscape indicated recovery. Construction activity dipped, but the rate of decline in employment and purchasing activity eased. Indications of stabilization in commercial construction also existed. This cautious optimism, combined with stable industrial demand, created a balanced supply-demand situation—just sufficient to avoid Calcium Carbonate price decline.

In the other half of the world, Malaysia's market for Calcium Carbonate was a tale of another kind. Prices dropped to USD 82–87/MT (FOB Johor) in early April, following greater market imbalances witnessed. Demand in traditional end-use applications like plastics, paper, and packaging was poor against a backdrop of regional trade uncertainty and duller export demand from main Asian partners.

Activity in the building sector locally to some degree helped ease things, but this was offset by infrastructure construction as industrial demand softened. Again, however, it was insufficient to rebalance the market. Prospective buyers became cautious as well, contracting their orders quantity because of bearish Calcium Carbonate prices and full inventories.

Malaysian manufacturers kept production volumes at their usual levels but were confronted with excessive inventories and growing competition from domestic suppliers. The higher volume of competitively priced imports, especially from Vietnam and China, further fuelled the price war. To stay competitive, most Malaysian suppliers were forced to slash prices, into already tight margins.

To these issues, export trade made little headway, with Southeast Asian purchaser’s hard bargainers against sellers in an area of sufficient supply. This resulted in additional declines in domestic Calcium Carbonate prices, and sentiment remained weak heading into the second half of April.

With the global Calcium Carbonate market shifting further into Q2, Germany appears poised to keep prices in check—given that its industrial foundation continues to counteract construction dullness. Any significant recovery in German building activity might even impart modest upward pressure on prices.

Malaysia, however, remains in the limelight. Unless there is a decent increase in downstream demand or exports, the present oversupply is most likely to maintain Calcium Carbonate prices at depressed levels. Regional trade patterns and any government-sponsored infrastructure thrusts that would be capable of supporting local demand will be closely monitored.