European Foundry Industry Sentiment

Novem­ber 2019: Ongo­ing down­ward trend

The European Foundry Industry Sen­ti­ment fell slightly in Novem­ber. The European foundries are still not sat­is­fied with their cur­rent busi­ness situ­ation. Their expect­a­tions for the next six months are muted in Novem­ber. Only the expect­a­tions of non-fer­rous foundries improved slightly. Also man­u­fac­tur­ers in the euro area expect an improve­ment in pro­duc­tion. There­fore, the Busi­ness Cli­mate Indic­ator remained broadly unchanged in November.

The main cus­tom­ers of the foundry industry ­– auto­mot­ive and gen­eral engin­eer­ing industry – are still under pres­sure. Hence, foundries barely plan pro­duc­tion expan­sions for the com­ing months. Moreover, it is not guar­an­teed that trade ten­sions will ease in the long-term. After count­less months of nego­ti­ations and addi­tional duties, the US and China both agreed to the “Phase-1-Deal” recently, in Decem­ber. But the US pres­id­en­tial elec­tions are com­ing up and the “Phase-2-Deal” includes nego­ti­ations regard­ing very con­tro­ver­sial issues. Moreover, the decision about 25 per­cent pun­it­ive tar­iffs on European pas­sen­ger car and com­pon­ent deliv­er­ies to the US has only been post­poned by six months. How this envir­on­ment will affect the foundry busi­ness cli­mate at the end of the year will soon become apparent.

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