India rates high on US business scale

New Delhi, Sept17: Riding high on the growing trade relations between the US and India, Indo-American Chamber of Commerce (IACC) today released the Business Confidence Index, which reflects in numeric terms, the macro and micro economic activities between the two countries.

The index named 'IACC-IMaCS Indo-US Business Confidence Index (IIBCI)' is a barometer of the prevailing economic activities (trade, investments, business, industry, services etc) measured in terms of Indo-US bilateral trade, FDI, FII investment in each country.

Tremondous change in Indian economy

India has witnessed tremendous economic change with year-on-year real growth in excess of 7.5 per cent over last three years, the index says. ''Total exports are up by 20 per cent, while imports increased by 33 per cent during FY 2003-06,'' index said, adding that the manufacturing sector has witnessed a growth of more than 10 per cent over the last three years, while the same has increased more than eight per cent in the services segment.

Talking about the Indo-US trade, the study says that trade in merchandise goods stood at 31.92 billion dollar in 2006. ''Imports from the US stood at 10.9 billion dollars, while exports were of the tune of 21 billion dollars,'' said the index.

Ample investment oppotunities

The services sector--IT, BPO, KPO, ITeS etc will provide ample growth and investment opportunities, the index added.

''The business sentiment is governed by the overall economic indicators, investment climate, forward-looking expectations and perceptions of the stakeholders in the two countries,'' IACC President Deepak Pahwa told reporters.

The IIBCI, precaliberated in 100 in 2003 (the base year) has shown a steady rise over the past three years to reach 219 in 2006. The index is an aggregation of six sub-indices that measure level of economic, trade and investment activities between the two countries over the years.

Rate of confidence

According to the index, the rate of increase in confidence has been about 20 per cent. ''Merchandise exports grew to 21.83 billion dollar in 2006 from 18.81 billion dollar, while services exports grew to 49.67 billion dollar from 41.75 billion dollar,'' the index says.

IMaCS will update and refine the index on a half-yearly basis. ''We will bring out a comprehensive index for the year 2007 in December, and after that the index will be brought out every six months unless there's a major event, which needs immediate attention,'' Mr Pahwa said.

UNI