With lower investments in Q3, industry clearly in wait-and-watch mode

There has been little pick-up in new investment announcements in Q3 of 2020-21 at Rs 89,087 crore, compared with Rs 1.05 trillion in Q2 and Rs 85,470 crore in Q1, according to a Care Ratings report. The increase witnessed in Q2 was not maintained in Q3, and industry is clearly in wait-and-watch mode. Data on new investment announcements in the past decade in the first three quarters of the financial year shows that there has been no fixed pattern of such announcements in Q4. And hence it will be hard to conjecture how this would pan out for the period Jan-March 2021.

But the volume of intentions is the lowest during this period, and it is unlikely to be reversed. Low volumes were also witnessed in 2011-12 and 2012-13, but were still nearly 2.75 times what has been registered this year.