European Foundry Industry Sentiment

Septem­ber 2019: Busi­ness cli­mate still under pressure

The busi­ness cli­mate in the European foundry industry drops slightly in Septem­ber. Foundries were once again less sat­is­fied with their ongo­ing busi­ness, and their expect­a­tions for the next six months remained scep­tical. This is in line with the trend of the European industry: The European Com­mis­sion’s Busi­ness Cli­mate Indic­ator shows that the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor in the Euro area is under severe pres­sure. Sev­eral down­grades of fore­casts – both for new regis­tra­tions and pro­duc­tion of pas­sen­ger cars, as well as for the sales of machines – are already a sign of lower invest­ment activ­ity and of fur­ther slow­down bey­ond the turn of the year 2019/2020. Con­sequently, the cur­rent demand devel­op­ment for cas­ted com­pon­ents and pro­duc­tion plans do not offer any improve­ment in the com­ing months.

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