Chief Executive Officers (CEO) of Indian Corporate houses are no longer feeling the need to have reservations about Indian economy. They are quite positive that India would post a growth rate of more than 7 percent during the current financial year 2018-19.

It might even go farther northwards too. This will perhaps be sustained by a boost in consumers’ demand and help private investments to pour in. When such is the case, they believe, employment generation in the country too will witness a boom time.

Industry body Confederation of Indian Industry’s (CII) “CEOs opinion poll” on Monday showed that 82 per cent of the chief executives expect GDP growth to be higher than seven per cent for 2018-19. Of them, 10 per cent expect the growth rate to even go above 7.5 per cent. Besides, 92 per cent of CEOs polled expect further increase in consumption demand during 2018-19.

Regarding the infrastructure sector, CEOs stated that there is a “discernible change” now as compared to a few years ago.0>

The data disclosed that 60 per cent of Chief Executive Officers believe that private investment will increase during the coming year. In terms of employment generation, 56 per cent of the CEOs polled expect jobs to increase during 2018-19 and just 18 per cent believe that it will be maintained at the current levels.

According to the industry body, positive sentiments on the Indian economy were universally expressed at a meeting of its National Council (NC) held in Pune on June 4, and attended by more than 80 senior corporate leaders.

“Chief Executive Officers feel that Indian economy is in a sweet spot right now as the adjustment process regarding major reforms of the past few years is largely stabilised and industry is ready for a fresh phase of investment while capacity utilisation builds up,” CII President Rakesh Bharti Mittal was quoted as saying in a statement.

Additionally, the CII NC meeting lauded the landmark policy of “Fixed Term Employment” which has recently been extended to all sectors. Sector-wise, the overall opinion of CII members on the manufacturing sector was that “demand is healthy, although input costs are rising.”>