Year to date ocean and air trade from the EU is up slightly compared to last year. However, latest European Union industrial indicators provide little evidence of an imminent recovery of industrial activity. As such it is unlikely that we will see any substantial further pick up in air and ocean import and export activity.
Interactive Indicator Dashboard
The interactive dashboard below provides 14 panels with time series data on different industry indicators, specifically:
- European Union and country level confidence indicators including economic sentiment, consumer, services, retail trade, industrial and construction confidence through to July 2024. Country level data also includes Turkey.
- Manufacturing capacity utilisation between 3Q 2021 and 3Q 2024
- European Union indicators on overall as well as export orderbook, finished product inventories, production trend, production and selling price expectations through to July 2024
- European union and country level factors limiting further production output with a focus on demand, material and equipment shortages, labour, finance and other factors. Series is current through to Q3 2024.
- European and country level indicators on capacity utilisation, current production capacity, new order trend and competitive position within and outside the EU.
Summary Assessment
Overall economic sentiment in July continued to be flat, while consumer confidence has been trending upward since September 2023. Services and retail trade confidence both has decreased, and industrial confidence continues to follow a moderate downward trend. Construction confidence saw a slight improvement in July but has generally been flat. There are no big differences among the top three economies – Germany, France and Italy. However, industrial confidence in Spain has improved. In general, we find Spain has been outperforming other major EU economies.
Manufacturing capacity utilisation saw a further drop in the third quarter, dropping from 79% to 78%. Utilisation is well below Q1 2022 peak leaves of 82%. Germany has experienced a large drop in the past months. Italy and France have been largely flat.
There has been no improvement in overall orderbooks, and export orders are down. Inventories remain unchanged and production has been following a slight downward trend. Selling price expectations are largely flat. The picture is consistent across major economies but it’s worth noting that France saw a big drop in both export order book and production expectations. This is consistent with manufacturing PMIs for the Eurozone which were also released this week. On a positive note, more companies across the EU are reporting an improvement in new orders and competitive position outside the EU compared to Q2 2024. And although the outlook for manufacturing has been downgraded for the 3rd quarter, there is still an expectation of growth in the fourth quarter.
The number of companies listing demand as a limiter of production outlook has increased, particularly in Germany. Material/ Equipment shortages and labour constraints experiences in 2021-2022 have largely subsided. Of the four largest EU economies, Spain presents the most positive data.