No fundamental upswing was noticeable on the German softwood lumber market by the beginning of May. In spite of a still reduced pace of cutting activity, many businesses have so far been unable to achieve a satisfactory degree of capacity utilisation. In the last two to three weeks, producers have had to reduce or in some cases even completely cut the shifts they had planned for the bank holiday owing to sluggish receipts of orders. Buyers in almost all sales segments on the domestic market are still holding back from concluding longer-term contracts. One of the reasons for this is the respective customer groups’ continuing uncertainty about future business development. Another is the availability of almost all lumber assortments at short notice until the beginning of May. From what German producers are saying, Scandinavian as well as eastern European softwood lumber suppliers are still working the market intensively.