Past six months' performance coupled with expectations of higher growth and capacity expansion are keeping business confidence buzzing as revealed by CII's 64th business outlook survey. While service companies expected a better growth compared to the manufacturing companies, more jobs were also likely to be created during this period.

CII's business confidence index (CII-BCI) at 65.7 is higher for the period September 2005 - March 2006 with an increase of 1.5 points compared to the previous period April-September 2005. And leading the charge are non-manufacturing firms providing services as opposed to the manufacturing ones.

The CII-BCI constructed as a weighted average of the Current Situation Index (CSI) and the Expectations Index (EI), was found to be higher among non-manufacturing firms by 4.4 points compared to the manufactured firms.

(The Economic Times)