Optimistic Outlook For Indian Economy, 75% Of Private Firms Term It Conducive: CII Survey Reveals

 A recent survey by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has revealed an optimistic outlook for the Indian economy, with 75% of companies believing that the current environment is conducive for private investments. 
This positive sentiment is further bolstered by the fact that 70% of firms surveyed plan to invest in FY'26, potentially leading to an uptick in private investments over the next few quarters.

"Given that 70 per cent of the firms surveyed said that they would invest in FY'26, an uptick in private investments might be on the cards over the next few quarters", said Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII.

The CII survey conducted over the past 30 days, suggests that 75% of the respondents believe that the current economic environment is conducive to private investments despite geopolitical faultlines disrupting global supply chains and posing serious challenges to global growth.

CII initiated an Industry survey to assess the pickup in private-sector investments, employment in the private sector and growth in wages in the private sector. India has emerged as a bright spot amid this challenging global backdrop. The sound economic policies initiated by the Government helped revive the economy with an emphasis on public capex-led growth.

The pan-India survey is an ongoing initiative, that will be completed for 500 firms by the first week of February. The interim results based on a sample of 300 firms spread across all industry sizes (Large, Medium and Small) throw some positive results, which underscores the fundamental optimism about the Indian economy, the industry body added. 

CII added that along with economic growth, employment generation has also been at the centre stage in recent policy discussions.
India's vision of a "Viksit Bharat" by 2047 is hinged upon performing well on the imperative of "creation of good quality jobs", it added.

The early results from the survey show that about 97 per cent of the sample firms are likely to increase employment in both 2024-25 and 2025-26. In fact, 79 per cent of the respondents' firms said that they added more people over the past three years.

Responding to the question on extent of employment generation expected in financial year (FY) 2025 and FY'26, about 97 per cent of the firms indicated that employment is expected to increase with 42 per cent to 46 per cent of the firms indicating 10 to 20 per cent increase in employment over and above the existing workforce and about 31 per cent to 36 per cent of them have indicated expected increase in employment of upto 10 per cent.

The average increase in direct employment due to planned investments in next one year is expected to be in the range of 15 per cent to 22 per cent between manufacturing and services sectors respectively. Similar expectations were seen in the interim results on indirect employment with manufacturing and services firms expecting about 14 per cent increase in indirect employment respectively over and above the existing levels of employment.

Majority of the firms surveyed indicated that it takes anywhere between 1 to 6 months to fill in vacancies of Senior management, Management/ Supervisory level, while regular and contractual workers take less time to fill in a vacant position indicating the need to fill the availability of skilled staff at the higher level in sample firms.

"With the two critical drivers of growth - private investments and employment - looking positive, we feel confident that the overall growth is likely to remain around a stable 6.4-6.7 per cent this year and is likely to be 7.0 per cent in FY26", said Banerjee.

On wages growth, which has impact on personal consumption, a major proportion (40 per cent to 45 per cent) of sample firms surveyed saw an increase in average wage growth for senior management, managerial/ supervisory roles and for regular workers in the range of 10 per cent to 20 per cent in FY' 25. The trend was similar in FY' 24.

"These are promising results, exhibiting confidence about some of the important aspects of the economy. That said, results of the survey, when read along with various other emerging economic indicators, will help in a comprehensive understanding of the economy", underlined the Director General of CII. (ANI)