European Foundry Industry Sentiment

August 2020: European foundries con­tinue to face no pos­it­ive out­look after the Covid-19 outbreak

After a sharp drop and its low­est level in May, the Busi­ness Cli­mate Indic­ator for the euro area recovered for the third time in a row in August. How­ever, the signs of recov­ery have so far not been reflec­ted in the mood among foundries. The European Foundry Industry Sen­ti­ment (FISI), as a res­ult, has recor­ded a neg­at­ive sign for the sixth con­sec­ut­ive month since Feb­ru­ary. While the Busi­ness Cli­mate Indic­ator (BCI) increased from ‑1.8 to ‑1.3 points in August, the FISI fell by another 0.5 points to 99.3. These partly oppos­ing devel­op­ments sug­gest that the Covid-19 pan­demic and the struc­tural changes in the auto­mot­ive industry will affect the European foundry industry in the longer term.

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:

Sophie Stef­fen
Sec­ret­ary Com­mis­sion for Eco­nom­ics & Stat­ist­ics
phone: +49 211 68 71 — 301
sophie.steffen@caef.eu