Business confidence recovers from lows: NCAER

Business confidence has recovered from the lows of the pre-pandemic (2019-20) and the following two pandemic years, though sentiments continued to soften sequentially in the three quarters of the current fiscal, economic think-tank NCAER said. The NCAER-NSE Business Confidence Index (BCI) was higher at 126.6 in the third quarter of 2022-23 than the year-ago's level of 124.4.

"However, sentiments continued to soften sequentially in the first, second and third quarters of 2022-23," it said.

The National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) further said sentiments relating to macro conditions remained relatively buoyant in the third quarter of 2022-23 as compared to the second.


The share of positive responses increased for the component 'overall economic conditions will improve in the next six months' and remained unchanged for the component 'present investment climate is positive'.

In contrast, sentiments pertaining to firms' own conditions softened between the two quarters for the components -- 'financial position of firm will improve in the next six months' and 'present capacity utilisation is close to or above the optimal level', the think-tank said.

NCAER carried out the 123rd Round of its Business Expectations Survey (BES) in December 2022, with support from the National Stock Exchange of India Limited (NSE).

The think-tank has been carrying out the BES every quarter since 1991, covering 500 firms across four regions.