Economic think tank the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in its latest survey has showed that business confidence among Indian companies dropped by 9.1 percent to reach 115.4 in Q4 (January-March) of 2018-19. NCAER tracks the business sentiments of around 600 Indian companies to calculate the composite Business Confidence Index (BCI). On a year-on-year basis, the Index slumped by 12.2 percent in financial year 2019.
The BCI is made up of four components. According to the think tank's survey, sentiments remained virtually unchanged for the component, ‘the overall economic conditions will be better in next six months’. It also said that business sentiments worsened for the remaining three components -- the 'financial position of the firms will improve in next six months', 'the present investment climate is positive' and 'the present capacity utilisation is close to or above optimal level'. It also noted that the percentage of positive responses on 'present investment climate is positive' fell from 46.7 percent at end-December 2018 to 37.5 percent at the end of last fiscal.
NCAER has said that overall, sentiments regarding production, domestic sales, expectations about exports and imports of raw materials and pre-tax profits remained muted on quarter-on-quarter basis with variations seen across firm groups. It also said that consumer non-durables sector showed relatively worsening trend with regard to production, sales and pre-tax profits between the two rounds. The situation regarding labour employment had been mixed. However, it said future expectations about labour employment were buoyant with increased expectations about rising employment across labour types.
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