European Foundry Industry Sentiment

April 2019: Cur­rent situ­ation and per­spect­ives under pressure

The European Foundry Industry Sen­ti­ment Indic­ator (FISI) illus­trates that the foundries are increas­ingly con­fron­ted by a down­ward trend. This devel­op­ment is sim­ilar to the declin­ing tend­ency of the whole industry sec­tor in the Euro Area. After a long-term period of strong growth rates and optim­ism, the European foundries assess the cur­rent busi­ness situ­ation to be weaker. But over­all, it remains on a com­fort­able level.

The expect­a­tions for the next six months are con­tinu­ously under pres­sure due to the suf­fer­ing of the impact of global uncer­tain­ties. Besides the cool­ing eco­nomy and the main­tain­ing trade policy uncer­tain­ties, the gen­eral con­di­tions have only changed slightly. Although the Brexit has been post­poned to Octo­ber 2019, the final decision and the upcom­ing devel­op­ments are com­pletely unclear. As a res­ult, the European foundries look into the future with less confidence.

The FISI – European Foundry Industry Sen­ti­ment Indic­ator – is an early indic­ator of 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 FISI is the earli­est avail­able indic­ator, provid­ing inform­a­tion about the mood in the foundry industry.
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.

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