Business Confidence Index (CII-BCI) for January-March 2011 stood almost flat at 66.7 as compared to 66.2 in the 74th Business Outlook Survey for October-December 2010 when the index had increased by 1.4 points.
• Sectoral break-up shows that BCI for Primary sector is highest followed by Services and then Manufacturing as in the previous survey.
• A majority of respondents (68%) expect GDP growth rate above 8.0%, of this, 41% expect the growth rate to be in the range of 8.0 to 8.5% and 27% expect it to be higher than 8.5% in 2010-11.
• 78% of the respondents expect inflation to be above 6.0% in 2010. Of this, the majority(29%) expect it to be in the range of 7.0 - 8.0%.
• 63% of the respondents would like to increase their spending on capacity expansion during January-March 2011 as compared to the previous quarter.
• 74% of respondents expect capacity utilization to exceed 75% in the quarter ending March 2011.
• 75% of the respondents expect their sales to rise while 59% of the respondents foresee an increase in production and 67% expect increase in new orders in January-March 2011 compared to the previous quarter. Also, majority of the respondents (52%) expect raw material prices to go up in the coming quarter.
• 65% of the respondents do not expect their inventory levels to decline.
• 44% of the respondents expect employment to increase during the next three months
• The survey revealed that 52% of the respondents do no expect availability of credit to increase, while 71% feel that the cost of credit will not fall in January-March 2011.
• 37% of the respondents expect export volumes to increase in January-March 2011.
• High Fiscal Deficit and Slackening Consumer Demand are the top concerns.