European Foundry Industry Sentiment

August 2019: A stable eco­nomic envir­on­ment is required

The European foundry industry sen­ti­ment did not improve in August. Both, the assess­ment of the cur­rent situ­ation and expect­a­tions for the com­ing six months have deteri­or­ated slightly. By con­trast, the mod­er­ate improve­ment in eco­nomic con­fid­ence in the Euro area, which is being recor­ded by the EU Com­mis­sion, has received a pos­it­ive boost. This will prob­ably not indic­ate a turn­around. The improve­ment in sen­ti­ment is based on a thin found­a­tion, as only the industry has seen an upward trend. The numer­ous uncer­tain­ties for the export-ori­ented foundry industry and its main cus­tomer indus­tries remain unsolved. Instead, com­pan­ies are still look­ing for ori­ent­a­tion while the pos­sible Brexit date approaches and inter­na­tional trade con­flicts con­tinue to arise.

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