Global Business Climate Remains Sluggish for Agricultural Machinery

While the global downturn in the agricultural machinery industry seems to have stabilized, global recovery is not in sight for the next six months and the sector may stay at current low levels, according to results of the latest Agrievolution Business Barometer survey.

The survey’s global business climate index is back to the low level of October 2014, and while the current situation is evaluated to be significantly worse, future expectations have improved and are now slightly positive. But they are far more muted when compared with the last two surveys taken in 2015, particularly from Western Europe as well as the United States.

The biannual survey is produced by the Agrievolution Alliance, a global network of the leading agricultural machinery associations representing more than 6,000 equipment manufacturers worldwide. The Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) serves as Alliance secretariat.

In other findings of the latest Agrievolution Business Barometer Survey:

• Looking at global industry expectations for single markets in the next six months, East Asia leads the ranking, followed by Africa. For North and Latin America, a majority of the survey participants expect turnover decreases.
• A large majority of Japanese and Russian industry representatives, but also one third of the Turkish participants, reported changes in government programs with positive effects on demand for agricultural machinery in their countries. This could be one explanation, why contrary to other locations, the volume of orders did not decrease in Russia, Japan and Turkey.
• Apart from Russia, the general mood of farmers remains largely negative due to the low commodity prices and thus profitability. This might not change in the short-term.

 Through the Agrievolution Alliance, equipment manufacturers cooperate to advance agricultural interests worldwide and promote better understanding of the key role agricultural machinery plays in sustaining a growing world population.

The Agrievolution Business Barometer survey provides Alliance members and their participating companies with timely and accurate global market trends data for business planning. The alliance also releases a public summary report, available on the Agrievolution Alliance website as well as the AEM website in the Market Data/Market Intelligence section.