European Foundry Industry Sentiment

April 2021: Robust recov­ery and pos­it­ive outlook

In April, the European Foundry Industry Sen­ti­ment Indic­ator (FISI) rises for the fifth time in a row. The recov­ery is driven by both non-fer­rous metal foundries and iron foundries. The improve­ment in the cur­rent situ­ation and expect­a­tions for the next six months are equally respons­ible for the increase of 1.9 index points. The new value of 107.2 points is at the level of Septem­ber 2019.

The order range of the European foundries has recently increased sig­ni­fic­antly. While the pos­it­ive expect­a­tions for the next six months con­tinue to point to a stable devel­op­ment, mater­ial short­ages nev­er­the­less threaten to impair the import­ant recov­ery pro­cess. A major influ­ence on the pos­it­ive expect­a­tions is likely to be the declin­ing Covid-19 infec­tion fig­ures in large parts of Europe. Pro­gress on vac­cin­a­tions has also picked up con­sid­er­ably in many places recently, so that restric­tions on pub­lic life will be gradu­ally eased over the next days and weeks.

Mean­while, the Euro­zone Busi­ness Con­fid­ence Indic­ator (BCI) has seen by far its largest monthly increase since cal­cu­la­tions began in 1985. It climbed by 0.82 points to a new index value of 1.31.  While the People’s Repub­lic of China has been out of the crisis since the middle of last year and the United States has also been report­ing pos­it­ive pro­duc­tion fig­ures for some time, the European eco­nom­ies are finally fol­low­ing suit with a delay.

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