EFF Year­book 2019 published

Data on European foundries of unique scope and depth help to clas­sify the cur­rent crisis and reveal the chal­lenges of the over­all struc­tural change in the industry.

The cur­rent year is marked by the Covid-19 pan­demic in all eco­nomic and social aspects in Europe and around the world. In spring, the sites of many foundries as well as of their sup­pli­ers and cli­ents were often com­pletely shut down for sev­eral weeks in numer­ous European coun­tries. After pro­duc­tion has restar­ted around sum­mer with great efforts and adap­ted hygiene con­cepts, the num­ber of Covid-19 cases is rising sharply again towards the end of the year and threatens to put a heavy strain on eco­nomic recovery.

A ques­tion often asked dur­ing the crisis is: When will the pre-crisis level be reached?

Just as often as the ques­tion was asked, the answers have been revised and updated dur­ing the dynamic devel­op­ment. While we deal with the con­sequences of the crisis on a daily basis, the EFF Year­book 2019 provides a review. In order to answer the ques­tion raised here, it is not enough to simply look into the future, we must also know where we come from.

For the European foundry industry, the EFF Year­book presents an over­view of rel­ev­ant data in unique depth and scope. A glance at the data shows that cli­mate policy is more import­ant than ever and that the struc­tural changes that the man­u­fac­tur­ing industry is exper­i­en­cing in this con­text have already affected European foundries before the cur­rent crisis. While European pro­duc­tion of non-fer­rous metals fell by 3.0% over­all, pro­duc­tion of iron, ductile iron and steel cast­ings fell by 6.0% com­pared to 2018.

The fact that the cur­rent crisis is addi­tion­ally bur­den­ing the European foundry industry in this struc­tural change is a great chal­lenge. Bal­anced polit­ical frame­work con­di­tions are cru­cial to help foundries to emerge stronger from the trans­form­a­tion pro­cess, which is gath­er­ing momentum, as an import­ant corner­stone of the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy and an innov­at­ive com­pon­ent of the man­u­fac­tur­ing industry.

Down­load the EFF Year­book 2019 here.

EFF Con­tact:

Till­man van de Sand
phone: +49 211 68 71 — 301
tillman.vandesand@EFF.eu