April 20: According to a report by a global research firm Ipsos, Indians have again emerged as the second most confident people about their economy globally. This is on account of rising hope that the Indian economy will grow faster than expected with the Reserve Bank of India cutting the repo rate and lower inflationary pressure.
According to the Ipsos Economic Pulse of the World Survey, India's economic confidence further jumped up by 5 points to 79 percent in March 2012 compared to the previous month, to retain the second most economically confident nation title after Saudi Arabia which tops the table with 89 percent.The Ipsos survey was conducted in March 2012 among 18,775 people in 24 countries.
Mick Gordon, CEO of Ipsos in India, said: “India has overtaken Japan to become the third-largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity (as per IMF report) and is heading for accelerated growth following Reserve Bank of India cutting repo rate by 50 bps and inflation moderating to acceptable level."
More than half of Indian citizens (56%) believe their local economy which impacts their personal finance is good and 57 percent expect that the economy in their local area will be stronger in next six months.
“The global economic indicators are disturbing, as it is evident that the sources of external growth that the Indian economy has been relying upon in the last few years will be weak. In order to further strengthen domestic demand and improve investor confidence, the government has to improve the conditions for private investment, address infrastructure bottlenecks, enhance governance and public service delivery,” he further added.
The Ipsos report, which examined citizens' assessment of the current state of their country's economy, said that the overall global average economic confidence swung up one point at 39 percent last month.
Countries with the greatest improvements: Belgium (+8 to 24%), Poland (+6 to 27%), India (+5 to 79%), Russia (+5 to 33%), Argentina (+4 to 51%) and Great Britain (+4 to 14%).
Countries with the greatest declines: Brazil (-9 to 54%), Indonesia (-5 to 35%), South Africa (-4 to 36%), Australia (-4 to 62%), Sweden (-3 to 70%), and Germany (-3 to 68%).