European Foundry Industry Sentiment

April 2024:

European Foundry Industry Sen­ti­ment, April 2024: After a remark­able devel­op­ment in Spring, FISI takes a breath and now stands at 95.1 index points.

In April 2024, the European Foundry Industry Sen­ti­ment Indic­ator (FISI) exper­i­enced a decrease to 95.1 index points. After three con­sec­ut­ive increases for the FISI, the index
exper­i­ences a decrease of 0.7 index points, set­tling at 95.1 points com­pared to 95.8 points in the pre­vi­ous month. While the European Foundry Industry Sen­ti­ment Index had shown improve­ment over the last three months, it now seems to be sta­bil­iz­ing, reflect­ing a period of catch­ing breath. Raw mater­ial and scrap prices have seen little change dur­ing the past month, which sup­ports the gen­eral side­ways move­ment of the FISI. April has been a month of hold­ing steady for the industry, and this trend is likely to con­tinue through the sum­mer months. Polit­ical ini­ti­at­ives that could impact trade activ­it­ies are not expec­ted until late autumn at the earli­est. In the mean­time, com­pan­ies are focus­ing on internal optim­iz­a­tions and stra­tegic plan­ning to nav­ig­ate the cur­rent uncer­tain­ties. Stake­hold­ers are also closely mon­it­or­ing global mar­ket devel­op­ments to anti­cip­ate poten­tial shifts in demand and sup­ply chains.

Mean­while the Busi­ness Cli­mate Indic­ator (BCI) decreased notice­able and now stands at — 0.53 index points. This marks the tenth con­sec­ut­ive month that the BCI has lingered below the
crit­ical threshold of 0 index points. The main reason for the sig­ni­fic­ant reduc­tion is the pro­duc­tion trend observed in recent months. This down­turn sug­gests that busi­nesses are facing increased uncer­tainty and pres­sure, which may hinder their growth pro­spects. Con­sequently, com­pan­ies need to adopt more cau­tious strategies to nav­ig­ate the cur­rent eco­nomic landscape.

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.

CAEF Con­tact:

Johannes Kappes
Sec­ret­ary Com­mis­sion for Eco­nom­ics & Stat­ist­ics
phone: +49 211 68 71 — 291
mail: johannes.kappes@caef.eu