A survey conducted by the Confederation of Indian Industry has found the confidence level of industry moderately positive. It measured industrial performance during October 2002-March 2003.
Called the CII Business Confidence Index for April-September 2003, it is an aggregate of the index of the current situation and that of expectation. It notched up 61.6 points, indicating "moderate positive confidence".
The majority of respondents said the growth in GDP would be between 5 per cent and 6 per cent, and 15 per cent said it would exceed 6 per cent. Most of the respondents said they were looking at fresh investments in the next few months.
Thirteen per cent said they expected capacity utilisation in the next six months to be over 100 per cent, 62 per cent offered 75-100 per cent, and 21 per cent predicted 50-75 per cent. Only 5 per cent of the respondents expected capacity utilisation to be less than 50 per cent.
Around 40 per cent of the respondents expected no change in their profit margins in the next six months, and around 22 per cent foretold a decline.
Around 66 per cent of the respondents said export volumes would increase in the next six months. A majority of them said the rupee was at its right value.
Commenting on the constraints, the respondents felt that power continued to be the most vexing problem for industry in terms of infrastructure bottlenecks.
Reluctance of banks in lending, limited access to global and domestic capital markets, procedural hassles and subdued equity and money markets were also cited as factors obstructing access to finance.
The Business Confidence Index would be compiled biannually and was expected to become a leading index over the years for forecasting the performance of industry and the economy, CII said.
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