The general business climate index for the agricultural machinery industry in Europe has risen slightly for the first time after its 14-month period of decline from boom to recession. In May, the index increased from -57 to -51 points (on a scale of -100 to +100).
Overall, future expectations with regard to both incoming orders and turnover have stabilized further. In addition, current business now also appears to have bottomed out. In a segment comparison, livestock machinery manufacturers are the most confident with their expectations for the coming six months. Arable equipment, on the other hand, is the only segment in which expectations have deteriorated further. The business climate indices for tractors and combine harvesters have also improved slightly, but remain below the industry average.
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 3.7 months, which is still relatively high in a long-term comparison, but lower than in any month of the last three years.
