Private sector investment set to witness significant increase: CII President

 

 

Private sector investment is set to witness a significant increase, as capacity utilisation in several key sectors has already crossed 80 per cent and economic growth is estimated to be 6.7 per cent in the current financial year, newly elected CII President R Dinesh said on Sunday. He also exuded confidence that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will maintain status quo on interest rate in the next bi-monthly monetary policy to be announced later this week.

On why the Government unsuccessfully keeps on nudging private companies to increase investment, the CII president told PTI that the period between 2016 to 2019, was not good for growth and in 2020 there was COVID. “We have circumstances beyond our control which hampered demand … We did come out of the COVID much faster,” he said, adding there are signs of improvement.

Citing the CII’s annual CEOs survey, he said all sectors have crossed 75 per cent capacity utilisation and the figure was 80 per cent in key sectors like cement, steel, chemicals and machinery. “We are at the cusp of where private sector capex will see a significant increase happening,” he said, adding that as per the CMIE data investment commitment of Rs 25.7 lakh crore was made last year, as compared to Rs 14.3 lakh crore a year ago.