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In the food retail sector smaller and independent businesses are struggling to remain profitable due to fierce competition and high price pressure.

Food sales growth continues, and the economic impact of the USMCA agreement on consumers and food supply chains is expected to be relatively small.

Despite efforts of food exporters to diversify shipments away from Britain a hard Brexit remains a major threat, potentially leading to more insolvencies.

In the Belgian food retail segment a comprehensive price war cannot be ruled out for the future, potentially forcing many businesses out of the market.

The ongoing drought has put additional pressure on margins industrywide due to higher input costs, and many businesses are struggling to break-even.

Larger players continue to push the supply chain on price and longer payment terms, adding cash flow challenges to mainly smaller food businesses.

While businesses´ profits are still stable and financials mainly solid, environmental issues pose a potential major challenge for agriculture and food.

Insolvencies are expected to increase by about 1%-2% in 2020, mainly in the troubled meat segment and the beverages and fruit & vegetables subsectors.

The ongoing concentration process in the domestic market will increasingly put small retailers with a poor capacity to generate cash flow under pressure.

A modest margin rebound, but commodity prices, price wars between retailers, changing consumer habits and difficulties in staff recruitment remain issues.

While several Brexit postponenements have provided food exporters with sufficient time to adapt, small retailers suffer from market price pressure.

Domestic metals and steel demand is increasingly affected by subdued investment in the construction sector and a marked demand slowdown from automotive.

Many businesses suffer from decreasing demand from key buyer sectors, high commodity prices, overcapacity, strong competition, and low profitability.

A modest increase in payment delays cannot be ruled out in the coming 12 months, but no substantial insolvency increase is expected for the industry.

The number of protracted payments and insolvencies was high in 2019, and is expected to increase further in 2020, mainly affecting private-owned producers.

Payment delays and business failures are expected to increase modestly in the coming twelve months, especially in the metal manufacturing segment.

For many businesses both demand and profit margins are expected to deteriorate further, with a moderate rebound expected in H2 of 2020 at the earliest.

The sector benefits from the lift of US import tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminium, with profit margins of steel businesses expected to improve again.

Demand for metals and steel is currently impacted by the slowdown in demand from automotive and reduced investment from other manufacturing industries.

Due to a high level of non-performing assets in the sector banks are now unwilling to provide credit to the industry, causing additional liquidity issues.