Business confidence among Indian companies fell by 9.1 percent in the fourth quarter of the 2018-19 fiscal, said a survey by economic think tank National Council of Applied Economic Research on Tuesday.
The NCAER tracks the business sentiments of around 600 Indian companies to compute the composite Business Confidence Index.
The BCI fell by 9.1 percent to reach 115.4 at the end of fourth quarter of the last fiscal, on a quarter-on-quarter basis. On a year-on-year basis, the BCI fell by 12.2 percent, said the survey.
The BCI is made up of four components. Sentiments in the first component—overall economic conditions—remained virtually unchanged. Businesses, like the previous quarter, expect the next six months to be better.
Business sentiments worsened for the remaining three components—financial position of firms, present investment climate and present capacity utilisation.
Overall, sentiments regarding production, domestic sales, expectations about exports and imports of raw materials and pre-tax profits remained muted on quarter-on-quarter basis with variations seen across firm groups.
Consumer non-durables sector showed relatively worsening trend with regard to production, sales and pre-tax profits between the two rounds, the think tank said.
The situation regarding labour employment had been mixed. However, future expectations about labour employment were buoyant with increased expectations about rising employment across labour types.
The NCAER is one of the oldest economic think-tank, set up in 1956 at the behest of the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, to inform policy choices for both the public and private sectors.
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