IIM-A survey finds "improvement" in business climate in January 2019

By A Representative
The Business Inflation Expectations Survey (BIES) of the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), basedon the responses of over 1,600 companies, mostly in the manufacturing sector, has said that the business inflation expectation has declined further to 3.10% in January 2019 from 3.29% observed in December 2018.

Regarding cost perceptions, around 52% of the firms in January 2019 reported that increase in costs has been more than 3%, down down from around 61% in December 2018, during the last one year, and the proportion of firms perceiving significant cost increase in January 2019 has declined to 24% as compared to 27% in December 2018.

Nearly 58% of the firms in the sample reported that sales are ‘somewhat or much less than normal’ in January 2019. However, the proportion of firms that reported ‘much less than normal’ sales has remained similar during December 2018-January 2019 period.

The proportion of firms in the sample reporting ‘normal or greater than normal’ profit margins has increased to 40% in January 2019 from 36% in December 2018. This is primarily due to the increase in the proportion of firms reporting ‘somewhat greater than normal’ profit in January 2019, BIES report states.

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