Are we facing an economic gloom? The answer is a clear "No". There are challenges ahead, but the medium- and long-term perspective of Indian corporates indicates high confidence. At a recently held CII National Council meeting in Hyderabad, a snap poll showed that 97 per cent of CEOs do not see any significant decline in their company's top-line growth. They are going ahead with their investment plans. While high interest rates and increased economic volatility do appear to be causes of concern, order books and market projections for most sectors are upbeat.

 Almost two-fifths of respondents do not expect industrial growth to slow more than 1 per cent, and the remaining believe the maximum decline to be less than 2 per cent. This is against the actual decline by 3 percentage points in 2007-08 over the previous year. Regarding GDP growth, 86 per cent say any deceleration would be contained at 0.5-1.5 points. Four-fifth of the respondents say they do not expect production to dip while 50 per cent do not expect any impact on their top line growth. There are several reasons to be upbeat. One, the service sector performance continues to be robust, fuelled by transport, communications and trade growth. In the transport segment, expenditure on highways expansion, ports and airports has not been affected since these are long-term investments.

Two, infrastructure plans are on stream. Even though core sector growth has not been promising for the past few months, the government's intentions to spend and attract up to $500 billion in the next four-five years can itself be an incentive not to abandon production plans. CEOs have called for a special budget for infrastructure on the lines of the railway budget for kick-starting 20 national projects on a high-priority basis to boost core sector growth.