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Coronavirus

Sentiment in European foundries continues to decline

Due to the socio-economic lockdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the European Foundry Industry Sentiment (FISI) continued to decline in April.

Due to the socio-economic lockdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the European Foundry Industry Sentiment (FISI) continued to decline in April.

The fall in the sentiment of European foundries was primarily due to the deterioration in expectations for the coming six months. Because Covid-19 has a strong impact on the automotive industry and machine manufacturers, the European foundries are facing a sharp drop in incoming orders and consequently lower production. But the sentiment does not show the full scope of the challenging impacts, because the response rate this month was lower than usual. However, the Business Climate Indicator visualizes the negative mood of industrial companies in the Eurozone: the BCI decreased dramatically to -1,81 points. But it remained above the record low of April 2009 during the financial crisis.

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<strong>Foundry

The European Foundry Industry Sentiment Indicator (FISI) is the earliest available composite indicator providing information on the European foundry industry performance. It is published by CAEF, the umbrella organisation of the European foundry association 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 Business Climate Indicator (BCI) 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.

<strong>About CAEF

CAEF is the umbrella organisation of the national European foundry associations. The organisation has 22 European member states and works to promote the economical, technical, legal and social interests of the European foundry industry. At the same time, CAEF implements activities which aim at developing national foundry industries and co-ordinating their shared international interests. The General Secretariat is situated in Düsseldorf since 1997.

CAEF represents 4,700 European foundries. Nearly 300,000 employees are generating a turnover of EUR43 billion. European foundries are recruiting 20,000 workers and engineers per year. The main customer industries are e.g. the automotive, the general engineering and the building industries as well as the electrical engineering industry. No industrial sector exists without using casted components.

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