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Industry: Industry outlines wish list

	June 08, 2009

Indian industry is unanimous in its view that the thrust of the next budget for 2009-10 should be to encourage investment and generate demand within an inclusive ambit.



Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) separately emphasised that Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee should look to ensure 8-9 per cent growth rate during the current financial year and take it to 11 per cent in 2010-11.



FICCI President Harsh Pati Singhania put emphasis on agriculture and social sector reforms to give a boost to the growth trajectory and help step up investment. In addition, he was particular about encouraging children of below poverty level families to get educated and suggested the setting up of a finance company to provide loans and also financial benefits to enroll them in schools.



CII President Venu Srinivasan recommended that the Government should lend an impetus to the economy that should originate internally without expecting any assistance from external forces. He called for an investment budget focusing on fiscal prudence, capacity creation, promoting investment and fuel consumption. He argued for innovative investments in physical and social infrastructure with a view to accelerating internal growth momentum.

Assocham Senior Vice-President Swati Piramal felt that it was urgent to upgrade infrastructure, to improve efficiency and sustain economic growth. Dr. Piramal said that attention had to be paid to the recessionary trends across the globe as it had affected consumer confidence and demand for goods.

All these three major bodies were almost unanimous about the need to raise depreciation rates to 25 per cent, remove fringe benefit tax, do away with surcharges and cess and bring down corporate taxes besides providing relief to the general public with respect to direct taxes.





India Inc sees better future in six months



India Inc has regained the much-desired business confidence in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008-09, with majority of 300 companies stating that they see better economic outlook in the next six months, reports an industry survey.



As many as 57 per cent of the companies measured on the quarterly Business Confidence Index (BCI) of Ficci, indicated that they expect the overall economic condition to be 'moderately to substantially' better in the next six months.



The Ficci survey of the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008-09 is in sharp contrast with findings of the BCI of the previous quarter when only nine per cent firms had seen a bright outlook.



"The economy has bottomed out as was also indicated in the last survey and is clearly in the recovery mode," Ficci said.



Improvement in business confidence comes amidst the new UPA Government working on a 100-day programme for putting the economy back on the fast track.

About 47 per cent of the respondents said that their current firm performance has improved vis-à-vis last six months, representing a jump of 26 per cent from 21 per cent in the last survey.



The percentage of companies which saw a deterioration in their performance over the last six months has declined significantly to 18 per cent from 55 per cent in the last survey, the Ficci-BCI survey said.

The chamber has surveyed companies in various sectors including textiles, cement, steel, leather, chemicals and fertilisers, FMCG, banking and autos.

The steps taken by the RBI and the Government over the past two quarters have been instrumental in giving a boost to demand but there is still scope for further announcements to bring the economy back in full swing, the survey said.



Further, the respondents indicated that they would want to see a decline in interest rate by about 3-4 per cent. "There is an immediate need to bring down the interest rate in line with the decline in the repo rate," the survey said.