The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) business confidence index (BCI) for April-September 2008-09 dipped by 5.3 points compared to the past six months. The moderation reflects lower confidence due to uncertain global economic outlook and concerns about high interest rate.Compared to the corresponding period last year however, the index is down by only 2.9 points. The expectation index (EI) — which reflects industry perceptions with regard to performance of their company, their sector and the economy in the first half of 2008-09 — lost 6.4 points over October-March 2007-08 reflecting lower expectations in terms of performance during the first half of 2008-09. However, the EI for the first half when compared to the corresponding period in the previous year is down by 2.9 points.Revealing the outlook for 2008-09, 69 per cent of the respondents expected gross domestic product (GDP) growth to cross 8 per cent. When it comes to capital investment, the survey revealed that 67 per cent of the respondents would like to increase investments during April-October 2008-09 in comparison to October-March 2007-08.
