European Foundry Industry Sentiment

August 2021: Pos­it­ive expect­a­tions while facing the pressure

In August the European Foundry Sen­ti­ment Indic­ator (FISI) increased again after the slight dampener in the pre­vi­ous month. The plus of 1.0 points brings the index to a value of 109.7. While the cur­rent busi­ness situ­ation is gen­er­ally rated poorer than in the pre­vi­ous month, the more pos­it­ive expect­a­tions for the com­ing six months pull the index up on balance.

The vehicle con­struc­tion OEMs are noti­cing the prob­lems in the pro­cure­ment of elec­tronic com­pon­ents more and more and are announ­cing short-time work in rows. Sup­ply­ing foundries are expec­ted to show a degree of flex­ib­il­ity that no ser­i­ous pro­duc­tion plan­ning can match.

Mean­while, the con­sid­er­able cost increases in the pro­cure­ment of input mater­i­als and on the energy mar­ket are also put­ting pres­sure on foundries run­ning at full capa­city. Nev­er­the­less, the excel­lent order situ­ation in the machine engin­eer­ing sec­tor gives foundries a pos­it­ive out­look for the future.

At the same time, the Busi­ness Cli­mate Indic­ator (BCI) stopped its record reach­ing devel­op­ment in August. The slight decrease of 0.13 points brings the index to its to 1.75 points. The cur­rent busi­ness situ­ation is assessed as over­all pos­it­ive due to the excel­lent order-book levels from EU and non-EU countries.

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