After Friday’s anuncement that India’s GDP growth clocked 8.2% in first quarter of Financial Year 2018-19, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) CEOs conducted a snap poll, results of which delivers a hammerblow to critics of Indian ecomy under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Roaring an extremely positive outlook for future, CII’s top honchos pressed button on 14 specific questions. Despite granularity of questions, results of poll projects a powerhouse Indian ecomy on cards. 

Conducted on Saturday as part of CII’s National Council meeting in New Delhi, snap poll was taken by as many as 71 leing CEOs from CII Member companies and results express a robust and positive outlook on GDP growth, Corporate Revenues, Profits, Investments as well as employment.

WHAT WERE RESULTS OF CII CEOs SNAP POLL?

While full time critics continue ir rants, top bosses of industry have given Indian ecomy a thumbs up.

snap poll relied on a survey of a series of specific questions to top CEOs of country on Indian ecomy, industry specific expectations, employment and investment plans and industry’s overall outlook on FDI and exports for second half of Financial Year.

BIG > 7.25% GDP PREDICTION FOR FY 2018-19

Giving a big thumbs up to Indian ecomy, CII CEOs projected strong optimism on growth front with 68.6% of m expecting GDP for fiscal 2018-2019 to be greater than 7.25%, which is significantly higher than recorded GDP of 6.7% in FY 2017-2018. poll result t only indicates a resounding voice of approval for Modi government’s environment created for growth, but it also points to fact that jitters and short term uncertainty that came with big bang reforms of GST and Demonetisation have w successfully tided.
 

UNEMPLOYMENT FEARS QUELLED

Quelling fears of unemployment and lack of job creation, two specific results of poll delivered an unequivocal mess that top bosses of Industry in India were focussed on employment generation. While 70.5% of participants said that y plan to increase hiring at ir firms in present year, 56.3% of participants voiced that y expect employment to improve in second half of ongoing financial year.

EXPECTATIONS FOR SECOND HALF OF FY 2018-19 ANUNCED BY TOP CEOs

sketch for overall expectation on ecomy by CII CEOs in second half of financial year sound off a fairly strong and positive sentiment. While 56.7% of CEOs expected an improvement in consumer demand, almost 70% of m expected private investment to pick up. In a significant indication, 66.2% of top CEOs taking this poll demonstrated that ir expectation was that exports would improve in second half of year.

EXPECTATION ON FDI INFLOWS TO INCREASE

Coming in context of latest RBI report in August 2018 which spelt India’s FDI inflows at $37.3 billion in 2017-18 (an increase of 1 billion from previous fiscal year), sentiment vis-a-vis expectations of FDIs in latter part of year was laced with optimism. 48.5% of participants of poll expected an improvement in FDI in second part of year.
 

MANUFACTURING FIRMS TO MAX CAPACITY UTILIZATION

79.6% of participants belonging to Manufacturing Sector polled that y expect a 70-90% capacity utilization for ir individual companies. This t only expresses a strong demand in ecomy, but it also signals a big boost in terms of indicating a stable growth environment for manufacturing efficiency in future.

optimistic viewpoint of CII CEOs from sector comes on back of Manufacturing Sector growing at an impressive 13.5% in Quarter 1 of Financial Year.

HUSHING UP FEARS ON INVESTMENT FRONT

Calming fears on investment front, CII CEOs predicted a high level of investment activity. 44.1% of participants expected substantial increase in investment, while 47.1% demonstrated a small increase in same.

Apart from laying out ir plans for investments of ir individual businesses, 80% of participants expected an excess of 10% growth in ir respective sectors, reby painting an overall picture of a solid and durable macro-ecomic picture for India.

BIG HINTS ABOUT A BOOST FOR REVENUE GROWTH & URD PROFITS

Expressing sentiment of a muscular revenue growth and dropping indication of industry expansion, 25.7% of participants expected revenue growth to be more than 20%, while 47.1% of m forecasted revenue growth to be between 10-20%.

Reiterating a prospect of robustness in Indian ecomy, one third of participants expected profit growth of more than 15%, while 80 % of m pegged ir profits to grow by more than 10 %.

POSITIVE SIGNALS VIS-A-VIS BANKING CREDIT

On question of ditional finance for ir business, 37.1% of participants of CII CEO poll said that for FY 2017-18 ir companies relied majorly on banking credit.

A D OF APPROVAL FOR BEING PART OF RCEPA

last question on survey was in relation to Regional Comprehensive Ecomic Partnership Agreement (RCEPA), which is potentially world’s biggest free tre deal which is pegged to form largest ecomic free tre bloc in world. pact which is in-motion visions to be between 10 ASEAN countries and 6 of ir Free Tre Partners (India, China, Australia, Japan, Korea and New Zealand).

Interestingly, despite murmurs from quarters expressing fears that India would compromise its own interests by signing RCEPA, over 51% of CEOs who participated in   CII snap poll indicated that inking it would help India become part of regional/ global value chain.

INDUSTRY BIG HONCHOS WHO TOOK POLL

While a total of 71 CEOs took poll, some of participants included: Uday Kotak (MD-CEO, Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited), Vikram Kirloskar (Vice Chairman, Toyota Kirloskar Motors), Salil Singhal ( CMD, Pl Industries), Rakesh Bharti Mittal (Vice Chairman, Bharti Enterprises), Vishnu Mathur ( Director General, SIAM), Dr Pawan Goenka ( MD, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd), R Dinesh ( Joint Managing Director, TVS Enterprises), Pratyush Kumar (President, Boeing India), Ajit Gulabchand (President of CFI and CMD of Hindustan Construction Company), Dr Janmejaya Sinha (Chairman - Asia Pacific, Boston Consulting Group), Shyamal Mukherjee ( Chairman, PricewaterhouseCoopers India), Phil Shaw, Chief Executive (Lockheed Martin India), Vineet Mittal ( Chairman, Avaa Group), Sanjay Nayar (CEO, KKR India), Abhimanyu Munjal (Jt MD & CEO, Hero FinCorp), Piruz Khambatta (Chairman, Rasna Limited), Shibana Kamineni (Executive Vice Chairperson, Apollo Hospitals), Satish Reddy (Chairman, Dr Reddy's Labs), Atul Punj ( Chairman, Punj Lloyd), Arvind Thakur ( Vice Chairman and MD, NIIT Techlogies), Debjani Ghosh (President, NASSCOM), Raghupatti Singhania (CMD, JK Tyre & Industries), MS Unnikrishnan (MD-CEO, rmax), Bharat Puri (MD, Pidilite), Tulsi Tanti, (Chairman of Suzlon and Chairman of IWTMA) and TV Narendran (MD-CEO, Tata Steel).

WHAT DO RESULTS MEAN FOR INDIAN ECOMY?

Coming after a swa of criticism, especially from political Opposition, results of snap poll serve as an effective referendum t just on industry’s positive sentiment, but as equally industry’s stable forecast for remainder of financial year.

Politically, former Union Finance Minister and Senior Congressmen P Chidambaram while congratulating Modi government on Friday for pulling off an 8.2% GDP growth in Q1, h predicted that “going forward base effect will t be so favourable” and that rate of  “annual growth may be more or less like last year’s”.

In contriction to that sentiment, 68.6% of participants of CII CEOs Snap Poll said that y were expecting a GDP growth in excess of 7.25% - which is higher than 6.7% growth clocked in previous financial year.

(Re more on 8.2% Q1 Growth Here)

Contextually, results of snap poll will only enhance country’s ecomic picture and present a sound environment for investment given fact that it comes on back of India being back in pole position vis-a-vis global growth trends with its Q1 performance putting up a strong show and demonstrating a healthy base.