European Foundry Industry Sentiment

April 2020: The coronavirus crisis affects the European foundries more neg­at­ively than the mood may indicate

While the coronavirus spread around Europe, the COVID-19 pan­demic affected the health care and the socio-eco­nomic sys­tems of the European coun­tries to vary­ing neg­at­ive extents. Accord­ingly, the European Foundry Industry Sen­ti­ment con­tin­ued to decline in April, after the mood already worsened in March. This was primar­ily due to the deteri­or­a­tion in expect­a­tions for the com­ing six months. Because COVID-19 has a strong impact on the auto­mot­ive industry and machine man­u­fac­tur­ers, European foundries are facing a sharp drop in incom­ing orders and con­sequently lower pro­duc­tion. But the sen­ti­ment does not show the full scope of the chal­len­ging impacts, because the response rate this month was lower than usual. How­ever, the Busi­ness Cli­mate Indic­ator visu­al­ises the neg­at­ive mood of indus­trial com­pan­ies in the Euro Area: The BCI decreased dra­mat­ic­ally to ‑1,81 points. But it remained above the record low of April 2009 dur­ing the fin­an­cial crisis.

The FISI – European Foundry Industry Sen­ti­ment Indic­ator – is the earli­est avail­able com­pos­ite indic­ator provid­ing inform­a­tion on the European foundry industry per­form­ance. It is pub­lished by the European Foundry Asso­ci­ation (EFF) every month and is based on sur­vey responses of the European foundry industry. The EFF mem­bers are asked to give their assess­ment of the cur­rent busi­ness situ­ation in the foundry sec­tor and their expect­a­tions for the next six months.

The BCI – Busi­ness Cli­mate Indic­ator – is an indic­ator pub­lished by the European Com­mis­sion. The BCI eval­u­ates devel­op­ment con­di­tions of the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor in the euro area every month and uses five bal­ances of opin­ion from industry sur­vey: pro­duc­tion trends, order books, export order books, stocks and pro­duc­tion expectations.

EFF Con­tact:

Sophie Stef­fen
Sec­ret­ary Com­mis­sion for Eco­nom­ics & Stat­ist­ics
phone: +49 211 68 71 — 301
sophie.steffen@EFF.eu