Majority expect sales to be better in the coming six months: Business Confidence Survey

Three-fourths of the 500 Chief Executive Officers and Chief Financial Officers surveyed expect sales to be substantially or moderately better in the next six months.

The optimism was spread across the three segments surveyed by market research agency C fore for Business Today, India's No.1 business magazine, in early March just after the Union Budget and before an earthquake and tsunami set off a nuclear meltdown in Japan.

usiness Today will conduct the survey and publish it at the end of every quarter. The magazine believes it will soon become a benchmark for business confidence in India.

"As the economy prospers and more and more Indian companies become global, Corporate India needs an independent survey to take its temperature and benchmark its confidence. Business Today's Business Confidence Index fills that need," Editor in Chief Aroon Purie said.

The first survey was published in Business Today's May 1 edition, currently on the newsstands. Other salient findings of the survey are:

- 65 per cent of respondents predict hiring to moderately or substantially scale up hiring

- Nearly 80 per cent see profits rising moderately or substantially in the next six months

Commenting on the first Business Today Business Confidence index, Swati Piramal, Director, Piramal Healthcare, said: "The demand in the domestic ' as well as international 'market across urban, semirural and rural sectors is what is boosting the confidence index." Added Videocon Group Chairman V.N. Dhoot: ""The Rs 3 lakh crore a year the Centre is pumping into developing rural markets and infrastructure is a boost."