Fresh investments by the corporate sector hit a new low in fiscal year (FY) 2016-17. The combined capital expenditure (capex) by the country’s top 1,000 non-financial firms, in terms of revenue, was up just 5.8 per cent in FY17, growing at the slowest pace since 1992.

The previous low of capex growth was in FY1999-00, after the dotcom bubble in Year 2000. In all these, the top 1,000 companies made fresh investments of Rs 2.07 lakh crore in the last fiscal year, down from Rs 2.9 lakh crore in FY16, and an all-time high of Rs 5.7 lakh crore in FY14. An analysis of a common ...