The Hindu Business Line : Business confidence on the rise: FICCI

CORPORATE India's business confidence is soaring and the `feel good' factor is on the upswing. This assessment has been reflected in the Business Confidence Survey for the third quarter 2004-05 by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

According to the survey the next six months promises to be even more exciting, with sales, profitability and exports expected to spiral upwards. With hopes of an industry-friendly Budget and the optimism generated by the economic policy agenda set out by the Prime Minister, India Inc. is on a roll, FICCI President, Mr Onkar S. Kanwar, said.

The confidence indices computed by FICCI have seen a steep upward revision in their values in the present round of Business Confidence Survey, with all the value of all the three indices in the `significantly optimistic zone.' The Current Conditions Index has registered a gain of 8.3 per cent, going up from 67.8 in the last survey to 73.4 in the present survey. The Expectations Index is up from 69.9 in the last survey to 76.7 in the present round, a gain of 9.7 per cent. The FICCI Business Confidence Index stands at 75.6, a 9.2-per-cent gain over the last quarter value of 69.2.

The Survey, based on responses from 441 companies from diverse industry segments, reveals a marked improvement in the overall economic conditions, industry and firm-level performance during the last six months and there are great expectations of what lies in store in the next six months.

While unveiling the findings of the Survey on Sunday, Mr Kanwar said, "For the first time in the current fiscal all the three indices of current conditions, expectations and FICCI's business confidence are up substantially and have moved to the `significantly optimistic zone'."

A noteworthy feature of the Survey is the finding that 52 per cent of the respondents expect a double-digit increase in sales in the next six months, 30 per cent see profits rising between 10-30 per cent and 21 per cent of the respondents anticipate exports to grow between 20-30 per cent or more. Infrastructure glitches, however, continue to hound corporates.

Further, majority of the respondents (83 per cent) felt that current overall economic conditions are `Moderately to Substantially better' compared to the last six months. As many as 75 per cent of the respondents expect overall economic conditions to be `Moderately to Substantially better' in the coming six months, the Survey stated. It is the heavy industry that is the most optimistic about its performance in the coming months.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page