European Foundry Industry Sentiment

Novem­ber 2021: Throw­back at the end of the year

While the assess­ment of the cur­rent busi­ness situ­ation for non-fer­rous metal foundries has been declin­ing in stages since June, the situ­ation for iron foundries has so far remained stable at a high level due to the very good order situ­ation from the mech­an­ical engin­eer­ing sec­tor. Many order books are full, how­ever due to the con­sid­er­able cost explo­sion for raw mater­i­als and energy, the busi­ness situ­ation has now deteri­or­ated sig­ni­fic­antly. Mean­while, there is no pro­spect of improve­ment in the com­ing months. The neg­at­ive trend in expect­a­tions for the next six months con­tin­ues. The European Foundry Industry Sen­ti­ment Indic­ator (FISI) decreases from 108.6 to 107.0 points in Novem­ber 2021.

The new Omic­ron vari­ant of the coronavirus, which seems to be more infec­tious than the dan­ger­ous Delta vari­ant, is caus­ing uncer­tainty and con­cern, sim­ilar to the second wave of infec­tion last year before Christ­mas. Booster vac­cin­a­tions need to be ramped up across Europe soon to avoid fur­ther over­load­ing of health sys­tems and worsen­ing con­sequences for soci­ety and the economy.

At the same time, the Busi­ness Cli­mate Indic­ator (BCI) remains on a high level in Novem­ber. The slight increase of 0.05 points brings the index to its to 1.80 points. In par­tic­u­lar, the sales price expect­a­tions for the com­ing months are increas­ing the BCI.

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