India's consumer confidence at highest level since mid-2019: RBI survey

India's consumer confidence at highest level since mid-2019: RBI survey

Consumer confidence in India is at its highest level since mid-2019, a bi-monthly survey conducted by the Reserve Bank of India showed on April 5.

The latest round of the survey was conducted during March 2-11, 2024, covering 6,083 respondents. Female respondents accounted for 50.8 per cent of this sample.

"Consumer confidence for the current period has been on a path of sustained recovery; respondents assessed improvement in all survey parameters; the current situation index (CSI) rose by 3.4 points to 98.5 – its highest level since mid-2019," the survey said.

The 'future expectations index', which judges consumer sentiment for the upcoming 12 months, also improved to its highest level since mid-2019, the survey showed.

"Consumer confidence for the year ahead improved further on the back of higher optimism in all CCS parameters; higher optimism resulted in the future expectations index (FEI) rising further by 2.1 points to 125.2 – also its highest level since mid-2019," said the survey.

Households’ sentiments on general economic situation and employment prospects recorded notable improvements for both the current period as well as the upcoming year, the survey added.

The data also showed that capacity utilisation in the manufacturing sector increased to 74.7% in October-December 2023 from 74% in the previous quarter.

"The prospects of investment activity remain bright owing to upturn in the private capex cycle becoming steadily broad-based, persisting and robust government capital expenditure, healthy balance sheets of banks and corporates, and rising capacity utilisation," central bank Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Friday as part of the monetary policy speech.

RBI MPC kept the repo rate unchanged at 6.5 percent.