After talks with industry leaders in Berlin on Nov. 6, Chancellor Friedrich Merz backed measures including hiking tariffs on foreign imports and slashing energy costs to help the sector.
Germany's strength as a leading industrial nation is strongly linked to steel production, which rose in tandem with the construction of the railways, military build-ups during two world wars, and the economic revival of the 1950s.
The country remains Europe's top steel producer, and the seventh largest in the world.
Steel is widely used in many sectors in Europe's biggest economy, from construction to automotive and mechanical engineering, and is an essential component of exports.
The sector directly provides jobs to only around 80,000 people but steel-intensive industries employ around four million people, according to German industry federation WV Stahl.
