European Foundry Industry Sentiment

February2021: Recov­ery picks up significantly

The Busi­ness Cli­mate Indic­ator increases by a sig­ni­fic­ant 3.4 index points in Feb­ru­ary, reach­ing a value of 104.7 points. Only once in the past ten years the industry has repor­ted a higher increase within one month. The driv­ing force behind this sig­ni­fic­ant improve­ment is a more pos­it­ive assess­ment of the cur­rent situ­ation in all three mater­ial groups — steel, fer­rous and non-ferrous.

Such a dynamic improve­ment gives reason to be optim­istic about a robust recov­ery, although des­pite these very pos­it­ive assess­ments by European foundries, the fur­ther devel­op­ment remains uncer­tain. While dis­cus­sions about eas­ing restric­tions may have strengthened the industry’s out­look in some coun­tries last month, the infec­tion fig­ures are already on the rise again in many regions. Also, in some European coun­tries, the recent dis­cus­sions about vac­cines and delays in their dis­tri­bu­tion will only be reflec­ted in the upcom­ing sen­ti­ment analysis.

Mean­while, the good fig­ures of the European foundry industry are sup­por­ted by the broad eco­nomic recov­ery in the Euro­zone, as the Busi­ness Con­fid­ence Indic­ator (BCI) con­tin­ues to recover. With an increase of 0.2 points, the index has risen for the ninth month in a row.

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