The general business climate index for the agricultural machinery industry in Europe has again deteriorated slightly following the sharp downturn of the previous months. In February, the index decreased from -50 to -52 points (on a scale of -100 to +100).
While the business climate indices for transportation and livestock equipment have improved to a certain extent at less negative levels, the indices for the manufacturers of tractors and harvesting equipment have dropped to historic lows.
Overall, across all segments, once again more than half of the survey participants consider the current business situation to be unfavorable and even two thirds expect their turnover to decline in the coming six months. A gradual stabilization could only be seen in the expectations for the coming order intake (an indicator that is not included in the calculation of the overall barometer index).
After order backlogs had peaked at the beginning of last year, the volume of orders has seen a repeated significant reduction and is now corresponding to a production period of 3.9 months, which is still relatively high in a long-term comparison, but lower than at the beginning of any year over the last three years.
