In what could come as a relief, consumer confidence has rebounded in January on account of easing inflation, increasing liquidity and stabilising US-China trade war, according to a report. India Primary Consumer Sentiment Index (Consumer Confidence), has risen over the previous month of November, signalling rising optimism going ahead, a combined report by Reuters and Ipsos showed.
After a slight fall in December, the consumer confidence has moved up by 2.7 percentage points.
“Lowering of fuel and food prices have brought down inflation, increasing liquidity, leading to the boost in optimism among Indians. Also macro indicators are harmonious, like the trade war between the US and China is stabilizing,” said Parijat Chakraborty of Ipsos India.
Notably, the index represents the combined aggregation of the four, weighted, sub-indices: the PCSI Employment Confidence (“Jobs”) Sub-Index, which is up 2 points; the PCSI Economic Expectations (“Expectations”) Sub Index, which is up 2 points; the PCSI Investment Climate (“Investment”) Sub-Index which is up 3.2 points; and the PCSI Current Personal Financial Conditions (“Current Conditions”) Sub-Index which is up 3.3 percentage points over last month.
Meanwhile, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) last week forecast that the Indian economy would grow at 7.3 per cent in FY19. On the back of strong investment and GST stabilisation, the growth would improve to 7.6 per cent in FY20, news agency PTI reported citing the multilateral funding agency. Besides, India’s funding would be scaled up to $4.5 billion in 2019, it added.