RBI forecasters’ survey sounds upbeat note on corporate sector performance

The Survey of Professional Forecasters  conducted by the Reserve Bank of India is bullish about the corporate sector's profitability in the current financial year.
 
According to the survey which has sounded an upbeat note on the corporate sector's profitability in the current financial year, the corporate sector's profit growth will be 10 per cent. This revised figure is up from 7.5 per cent from the earlier survey. However, the latest  survey has revised the corporate sector profit growth for 2010-11 marginally to 14.5 per cent from 15 per cent in the last survey.

The survey has also downscaled  the real GDP growth by 50 basis points to 6 per cent.

The central bank, in its second quarter Review of the Monetary Policy, projected a GDP growth of 6 per cent in 2009-10 with an upside bias on an assumption of a modest decline in agricultural production and a faster recovery in industrial production. The upward revision follows a firm recovery in industrial output.

According to the latest Central Statistical Organisation data, industrial production across major sectors such as manufacturing, electricity generation and mining, rose 9.1 per cent in September, higher than the 6.03 per cent growth recorded in the same month last year.

Of the 21 respondents in the ninth round of survey, a majority of them assigned a GDP growth range of 6-6.4 per cent for 2009-10 and 7.5-7.9 per cent for 2010-11.

The median estimates by forecasters for Wholesale Price Index based inflation in the third and fourth quarters of current financial year have been revised upwards to 4 per cent. (2.5 per cent last survey) and 6.8 per cent (5.4 per cent), respectively. Majority of the forecasters feel that inflation will be in the 6-6.9 per cent range in 2009-10 and 5-5.9 per cent in 2010-11.
 
The forecasters also assigned a highest 34.3 per cent chance for inflation at 6 .0-6.9 per cent in 2009-10, according to the survey.