European Foundry Industry Sentiment

Feb­ru­ary 2025: 

European Foundry Industry Sen­ti­ment Indic­ator (FISI) marks an increase in Feb­ru­ary 2025

Feb­ru­ary 2025 was the second month in a row, which dis­played del­ic­ate signs that the situ­ation of the European foundry industry is begin­ning to improve. The European Foundry Industry Sen­ti­ment Indic­ator (FISI), con­duc­ted monthly by the European Foundry Fed­er­a­tion, shows signs of a slight eco­nomic recov­ery. Com­pared to the data from Janu­ary 2025, the FISI increased from 91.3 to 93.4.

This does not mean an auto­matic, sud­den, cer­tain and dynamic eco­nomic growth in the upcom­ing months, yet these are the first signs that the European foundry industry is slowly recov­er­ing after an excep­tion­ally dif­fi­cult year 2024, when the FISI index value fell every month – from 96.2 in Janu­ary to 89.0 in Decem­ber 2024.

This rise sug­gests a slight improve­ment in the industry’s out­look, mov­ing closer to the neut­ral 100-point mark. This devel­op­ment is partly due to pos­it­ive expect­a­tions for the second half of 2025, as busi­nesses anti­cip­ate poten­tial growth and sta­bil­iz­a­tion in demand.

At the same time, in Feb­ru­ary 2025, the Busi­ness Cli­mate Indic­ator (BCI), an index pub­lished by European Com­mis­sion increased from ‑0.94 in Janu­ary to ‑0.74 and accord­ing to the latest news, the euro zone’s GDP growth is expec­ted to increase by +1.4% in 2025, up slightly from +0.7% in 2024.

The latest data shows a nor­mal­iz­a­tion of the situ­ation in the euro­zone’s man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor. The euro­zone man­u­fac­tur­ing Pur­chas­ing Man­agers’ Index (PMI) rose to 47.6 in Feb­ru­ary 2025, from 46.6 in Janu­ary and from 45.1 in Decem­ber, almost approach­ing the 50-point threshold that sep­ar­ates growth from contraction.

Pur­chas­ing Man­agers’ Index (PMI) in the Euro area is an indic­ator of the eco­nomic health of the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor. It is based on such indic­at­ors as: new orders, invent­ory levels, pro­duc­tion, sup­plier deliv­er­ies and the employ­ment environment.

Geo­pol­it­ical events, those of recent weeks, months and years, have caused revolu­tions in most indus­tries in Europe. In the foundry industry, it began with a drastic increase in the prices of mater­i­als and energy, and declines in pro­duc­tion in almost every EU coun­try. Now, the diver­si­fic­a­tion of foundry pro­duc­tion is increas­ingly notice­able. Due to the geo­pol­it­ical situ­ation, the arms industry and energy industry — which have always been sig­ni­fic­ant recip­i­ents of cast­ings — are gain­ing importance.

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 CAEF the European Foundry Asso­ci­ation every month and is based on sur­vey responses of the European foundry industry. The CAEF 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:

Wit­old Dobosz
Gen­eral Sec­ret­ariat
mail: info@eff-eu.org