The general business climate index for the agricultural machinery industry in Europe has continued to drop and has reached deep recession territory. In December, the index decreased from -40 point to -48 points (on a scale of -100 to +100).
While once again more than half of the survey participants consider the current business situation to be unfavorable, in the meantime even two thirds expect their turnover to decline in the coming six months.
On the other hand, although confidence levels for all European markets remain negative, the same indicator shows some slight improvements within these markets. Manufacturers are possibly encouraged by the fact that incoming orders from Europe, among others, were slightly less negative last month. In any case, manufacturers are not too pessimistic with view to the coming year 2024. For the full year of 2024, the survey participants expect their company's turnover to decline only slightly on average (-5% in the median and -2% in the arithmetic mean).
