NCAER: Investment climate turns negative
New Delhi: Oct 22 Ecomomic think tank National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) has said that the short-term business outlook remains stagnated and profits of India Inc are expected to take a marginal dip in the next two quarters.

In its latest report on business sentiment, the NCAER has said, "Thus, the business outlook is one of the near stagnation in output in the next six months,"adding, as a result firms are expecting their pre-tax profits to go down marginally in the next month.

The NCAER said the downward assessment of the overall economic conditions and financials by India Inc have adversely affected the perception of the investment climate. The survey also showed that apart from consumer durables, business confidence index of every other sector, especially, capital goods and services sectors, turned negative.

The NCAER said the low confidence among India Inc would have a negative bearing on their hiring policies with majority of the corporates reporting no change upwards in the hiring in the past few months.

In the six months, most of the firms say there would be a decline in hiring of all types of labour, NCAER observed.
Back to News Review index page  
India to top in car volumes by 2050
New Delhi: India is projected to have the largest number of cars in the world by 2050. According to the third Bric (Brazil, Russia, India, China) report from investment banking firm Goldman Sachs, this means every sixth car produced in the world will be sold in India.

The third Bric report says passenger car density in India will continue to be a third of China's until 2025. India will overtake its neighbour somewhere in the vicinity of 2050, when the country will have 382 cars per thousand people compared with China's 363 in that year.

The report also projected that there will be 14.35 million cars in India by 2010, in line with the industry's projection of adding a million cars a year from next year. It presumes a base of 9.03 million cars in 2005.
Back to News Review index page  

Inflation declines to 7.10 per cent
New Delhi/Mumbai: Inflation declined to 7.10 per cent during the week ended October 9, easing from 7.20 per cent a week earlier, thanks to a fall in the prices of non-food items.

Wholesale price inflation has hovered between 7 per cent and 8 per cent for 12 weeks, compared with 4.32 per cent in April. The rate has eased after reaching a three-and-a-half year high of 8.33 per cent at the end of August.

The index of non-food articles' group plummeted by 1 per cent to 189 points on account of cheaper sunflower (8 per cent), raw cotton (4 per cent), safflower and raw silk (3 per cent each) and gingelly seed and niger seed (1 per cent each). The index of primary articles' group declined by 0.3 per cent to 191.1 points.
Back to News Review index page