FICCI Manufacturing Survey Points Towards Recovery of the Sector in Q-2

New  Delhi:FICCI’s latest quarterly survey on Manufacturing points towards recovery of manufacturing sector for Q-2 (July-September 2020-21) as compared to previous quarter. The percentage of respondents reporting higher production in second quarter of 2020-21 has increased vis-?-vis the Q-1 of 2020-21. The proportion of respondents reporting higher output during July-September 2020 rose to 24%, as compared to 10% in Q-1 of 2020-21. The percentage of respondents expecting low or same production is 74% in Q-2 2020-21 which was 90% in Q-1 of 2020-21. The survey covered wide areas of relevance for manufacturing like exports, capacity utilization, ongoing restrictions, availability of labour/workforce and others. In many of these areas there are signs of operations inching towards normal and in coming months could see better performance.

Figure: % of Respondents Expecting Higher Production in the Quarter

vis-a-vis Respective Last Year’s Quarter

Source FICCI Survey

 

FICCI’s latest quarterly survey assessed the sentiments of manufacturers for Q-2 (July-September 2020-21) for twelve major sectors namely automotive, capital goods, cement and ceramics, chemicals, fertilizers and pharmaceuticals, electronics & electricals, leather and footwear, medical devices, metal & metal products, paper products, textiles, textile machinery, and miscellaneous. Responses have been drawn from over 300 manufacturing units from both large and SME segments with a combined annual turnover of around Rs 3 lakh crore.

 

Capacity Addition & Utilization

• The overall capacity utilization in manufacturing has witnessed a rise to 65% as compared to 61.5% in Q4 2019-20.
• The future investment outlook, however, is subdued as only 18% respondents reported plans for capacity additions for the next six months as compared to 22% in previous quarter.
• High raw material prices, high cost of finance, shortage of skilled labor and working capital, high logistics cost, low domestic and global demand due to imposition of lockdown across all countries to contain spread of coronavirus, excess capacities due to high volume of cheap imports into India, lack of financial assistance, uncertain demand scenario across globe, complex procedures for obtaining environmental clearances, high power tariff, are some of the major constraints which are affecting expansion plans of the respondents.
• From the table below, it is evident that the average capacity utilization for Q1 2020-21 has increased in sectors such as Automotive, Capital Goods, Metals & Metal Products, Electronics, Paper Products and Textiles.

 

Table: Average Capacity Utilization Levels as Reported in Survey (%)

 

 

Inventories

77% of the respondents had either more or same level of inventory in July-September 2020, whereas around 74% of the respondents maintained either more or same level of inventory in April?June quarter of 2020-21.

Exports

 

• The percentage of respondents expecting increase in exports in Q2 2020-21 has increased substantially to 24% when compared to Q1 2020-21, wherein merely 8% respondents were expecting a rise in exports. Also, 19% are expecting exports to continue to be on same path as that of same quarter last year

 

Hiring

 

• Hiring outlook for the sector, though bit improving, shows a bleak picture as 80% of the respondents mentioned that they are not likely to hire additional workforce in the next three months. This presents slightly improved situation in the hiring scenario as compared to the previous quarter Q-1 of 2020-21, where 85% of the respondents were not in favor of hiring additional workforce.

 

Interest Rate

 

• Average interest rate paid by the manufacturers has reduced slightly to 9.2% p.a. as against 9.4% p.a. during last quarter and the highest rate is reported to be 12.5%. The recent cuts in repo rate by RBI has not led to a consequential reduction in the lending rate as reported by 55% of the respondents.

 

Sectoral Growth

• Based on expectations in different sectors, all the sectors except Medical Devices are likely to register low growth in Q-2 2020-21. The primary reason for such depressed expectations seems to be the imposition of lockdown, subdued demand, restricted exports and other guidelines in place as a response towards COVID-19 outbreak. 

Table: Growth Assessment for Q-2 2020-21 compared with Q-2 2019-20

Note: Strong > 10%; 5% < Moderate < 10%; Low < 5%

 

Production Cost

• The cost of production as a percentage of sales for manufacturers in the survey has risen for 70% respondents. This is higher than that reported in previous year, where 64% respondents recorded increase in their production costs. Industry respondents have attributed the hike in productions costs primarily to high fixed costs, higher overhead costs for ensuring safety protocols, drastic reduction in volumes due to lockdown, lower capacity utilization, high freight charges and other logistic costs, increased cost of raw materials, power cost and high interest rates.

 

Back to Business Scenario in Manufacturing (Unlock period)

• As evident from the table below, Leather and Footwear & Textiles machinery sector is worst hit in terms of ongoing operations in the factories as per the demand and current orders post easing out of lockdown restrictions.

Table: Operations taking place in facilities post easing of the Lockdown Restrictions

 

• If one compares current percentage of active operations with the capacity utilization in Q-1, improvement is seen in many sectors like chemicals, cement, textiles, electronics etc.

 

Workforce Availability

• Below table highlights that sectors like leather and footwear have only half of the total labor force engaged in the operations and are hence facing labor shortage. On the other hand, sectors like chemicals, Fertilizers & Pharmaceuticals witnessed as high as 88% workers attendance at factories.

 

Table: Workforce Engagement in Factories

 

Sourcing Strategies

While not all sectors indicated a change in their input sourcing strategies but there are plans to shift the sourcing of inputs away from single country in certain areas like Automotive, Electronics & Electricals and textiles machinery.

Table: Sector wise plans to shift away input sourcing from outside