Business confidence of corporates down in Oct-Dec: CII

07 Jan 2013 Evaluate

According to CII quarterly Business Outlook Survey, high interest rates and infrastructure bottlenecks dampened the business confidence of corporates for October-December quarter. The Business Confidence Index (BCI) for October-December declined to 49.9 from 51.3 in the previous July-September quarter of FY13.

Expressing views on the dampened business confidence, CII survey said 'majority of respondents, rated domestic economic developments, high interest rates, infrastructure bottlenecks and institutional issues among the key concerns'. CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee said that decline in index is an indication of weak business sentiment and also a matter of concern which requires concerted policy intervention.

While, CII said that key reforms undertaken by the government in recent months will definitely start yielding results and it is important to keep going the reforms momentum for improving the business confidence of corporates. Corporates participated in the survey said that reform measures announced by the government would have a positive impact on investments; however the impact on output may take some time to take effect.

CII survey also indicated that majority of firms expect the GDP growth in the current fiscal to remain subdued in the range of 5.5-6 percent and elevated trend in inflation and fiscal deficit will continue in the remaining period of the current fiscal. 

On WPI-based inflation and fiscal deficit, CII survey said 'majority of the respondents expect WPI-based inflation for the current fiscal to end up as high as 7-8 percent, much higher than RBI’s comfort level. The fiscal deficit is expected to be in the range of 5.5-6 percent of GDP, way higher than the revised government target of 5.3 percent for 2012-13'.

Further, CII survey asked the government to increase the deprecation rate on plant and machinery from 15 percent to 25 percent for 3 to 5 years besides encouraging PSUs to use their cash reserves to build new capacity, exempts SEZ from MAT and fast tracks 50 mega industrial projects.

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