The war in Ukraine cre­ates con­sid­er­able uncer­tainty, caus­ing the FISI to drop in March. This is so far less related to a worsened assess­ment of cur­rent busi­ness situ­ation but rather to pess­im­istic expect­a­tions for the upcom­ing six months.

The fact that the FISI in Feb­ru­ary reached its highest value since pre-Corona June has no sig­ni­fic­ance in view of the Rus­sian inva­sion of Ukraine. The prom­ising data were col­lec­ted before the out­break of the war. The sig­ni­fic­ant mar­ket dis­rup­tions and their impact on European foundries will become vis­ible in the data in March.