The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Business Confidence Index for July-September 2012 fell by 3.7 points to 51.3, from 55.0 in April-June 2012.
“The falling index value is reflective of the low business sentiments prevailing since the last few quarters,” said Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII.
CII’s 80th Business Outlook Survey is based on a sample size of 160 firms covering all sectors, including small, medium and large enterprises from different regions.
Stagnancy in reforms is the top concern of most firms, followed by slackening consumer demand and high interest rates. Expectations for the second-quarter 2012-13 reveal that the bulk of the respondent companies (83.8 per cent) expect the availability of credit to remain stagnant or post a decline.
The survey showed that most respondents (45.6 per cent) expected India’s GDP growth for 2012-13 to be in the range of 6.0-6.5 per cent. Wholesale price-based inflation was expected to remain elevated, with 33.3 per cent respondents expecting it at around 7.0-8.0 per cent in the current year.
A majority (88.9 per cent) of respondents believed that infrastructure bottlenecks and lack of policy reforms were responsible for holding back domestic investments.
On a positive note, the survey showed that 56.1 per cent respondents expected domestic investments to rise in the second-quarter of 2012-13 compared with the first quarter.
In contrast, 42.6 per cent expected foreign investments to decline or remain unchanged in the second-quarter of 2012-13.