April 21, 2020–After four weeks of lockdown, some European countries are slowly lifting restrictions, allowing industrial production and some commercial operations to restart, and restoring some freedoms to their citizens.
In Italy, this week represents a key moment as some industries can resume production. Agricultural and Lawn&Garden OEMs can reopen their factories, although respecting strict regulations that will reduce factory capacity. The same is happening in Spain starting April 13, with all segments resuming work, but with differences across regions. Moreover, many OEMs were not able to meet the new working regulations and could not resume production.
Scandinavian countries are also restarting operations, or in some cases continuing, while Bridgestone just announced reopening of their factories in Belgium, France and Italy.
Germany and Denmark are also exiting their lockdowns, in a more significant way with small businesses opening across the powertrain industries as well as other retail and commercial segments.
The situation remains very difficult in the UK, where actions put in place by the local government are roughly two weeks behind the rest of Europe, and we will have to wait until mid-May to see any restart.
Source: Power Systems Research intelligence
PSR Analysis: While we are finally seeing a slowdown in the spreading of the virus, there is still a lot of ground to cover before we can even imagine going back to our normal life. The same is true for the machinery and components industries. Even with several countries in Europe are allowing the re-opening of factories, it does not mean we are going to see significant production levels.
First, the working criteria are very limiting, with reduced working hours, social distancing, cantines closed etc. Second, not all segments in all countries are allowed to restart, thus some operations will still remain closed, and some components suppliers will have demand from a smaller group of clients. Finally, with this climate of uncertainty, and companies struggling to survive, demand for new machinery is very slow, and we expect it will remain as such during the rest of Q2 2020 and Q3 2020. PSR
Emiliano Marzoli is Senior-Business Development Manager-Europe
