Capex investments stay muted in the September quarter: CMIE data

livemint.com:

₹1.2 trillion worth of projects were announced by companies during the July-September period, compared to ₹6.6 trillion in the preceding quarter. This marked a whopping decline of 82% since the June quarter, and 77% since the same quarter a year ago. The figures are provisional and may be updated later.

While both government-owned and private capex announcements declined, the contraction was much starker in the public sector. In the June quarter, the worth of public sector announcements had shrunk nearly 5% quarter-on-quarter, but this widened to 68% in the just-ended quarter. Private sector firms continued to tread with caution, with over 55% decline during the period.

The data denotes the capital expenditure plans of enterprises in India, both public and private, and Indian and foreign. Some of the prominent projects announced during the quarter include Waaree Energies' Kankani Industrial Area solar cell and modules manufacturing unit project worth ₹15,750 crore and Avaada Electro's manufacturing unit in Khordha, Odisha worth ₹11,300 crore. As the 2024 polls draw closer, new launches in the next two quarters are likely to dwindle.

To be sure, before the 2019 elections, around ₹9.9 trillion worth of projects were announced between April and September 2018, which dropped to ₹9.2 trillion in the two following quarters. Similarly, in the run-up to the 2014 polls, the value or project announcements dropped 15% in the second half of the 2013-14 compared to the first six months, the CMIE data showed. The sentiment weakened across sectors: the projects in the services (other than financials) segment fell the most, around 93.4% sequentially.