European Foundry Industry Sentiment

Decem­ber 2021: European foundries are end­ing the second of the pan­demic with mixed feelings

After recent signs of a com­pre­hens­ive slow­down, steel, iron and non-fer­rous metal foundries assessed the cur­rent situ­ation in Decem­ber as sig­ni­fic­antly bet­ter than in the pre­vi­ous month. Expect­a­tions for the upcom­ing six months do not, how­ever, take this select­ive assess­ment into account. The European Foundry Sen­ti­ment Indic­ator (FISI) nev­er­the­less improved by 1.1 points to the new index value of 108.1.

Explod­ing infec­tion fig­ures in Europe and on the globe are a cause of con­cern for the industry again. In addi­tion to the dir­ect impact on the pro­duc­tion facil­it­ies, fur­ther dis­rup­tions in the global sup­ply chains and asso­ci­ated cost increases and avail­ab­il­ity prob­lems for primary mater­i­als are to be expec­ted. While this also offers European foundries great busi­ness oppor­tun­it­ies, as the demand for cast­ings is suf­fi­cient espe­cially in mech­an­ical engin­eer­ing, the enorm­ous energy costs con­tinue to bur­den the entire industry. Although the urgency of the situ­ation has been recog­nised by politi­cians, quick and effect­ive solu­tions are dif­fi­cult to find due to geo­pol­it­ical ten­sions and inter­na­tional depend­en­cies on energy markets.

At the same time, the Busi­ness Cli­mate Indic­ator (BCI) remains on a high level in Decem­ber. The slight increase of 0.05 points brings the index to 1.84 points. Main drivers are the pro­duc­tion trend of the last weeks and the employ­ment expectations.

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 (CAEF) 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.

CAEF Con­tact:

Till­man van de Sand
Sec­ret­ary Com­mis­sion for Eco­nom­ics & Stat­ist­ics
phone: +49 211 68 71 — 301
mail: tillman.vandesand@caef.eu