Business confidence declines further for Oct-Dec quarter: CII Survey

30 Jan 2012 Evaluate

Uncertain global economy, rising interest rates and surging inflation had led to a decline in the business confidence for October-December 2011. As per the survey conducted by the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), the Business Confidence Index (BCI) for the third quarter has declined to 48.6 from 53.6 in the previous quarter.

BCI is a market-related index that reflects the mood of businesses in the economy. It is about what businesses are doing and experiencing. The index takes into account factors like expected GDP growth, monthly inflation figures and interest rates, analysis of the labour market, foreign investment, and the political climate, etc. which has impact on the business sector.

According to the CII director-general Chandrajit Banerjee, stagnation in investment plans has emerged as the key concern in the current macro-economic scenario. Apart from this, the high fiscal deficit, surge in imports, inadequacy of skilled labour and stagnancy in reforms have emerged as other key areas of concern.

Around 37.2% of respondents expected GDP growth to moderate to 7-7.5% for the current year, not far from what the finance ministry is expecting. A majority of the respondents also expected capacity expansion in their companies to stagnate. As many as 56.9% have said, that in the third quarter they will continue with the capacity similar to that in the second quarter. On the inflation front, 46.8% of respondents expect average inflation to be above 9% and 35.8% expecting it to be in the range of 8-9% in 2011-12.

Further, confidence among micro, small and medium enterprises in the services sector has remained higher at 56.1 as compared to manufacturing which stood at 52.6. The BCI has been falling in every quarter since the last one of 2010-11, and has fallen by a cumulative 18.1 points since then.

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