Today, the Reserve Bank released the results of the 45th round of the Order Books, Inventories and Capacity Utilisation Survey (OBICUS) for the quarter January-March 2019 covering 843 manufacturing companies. The survey provides a snapshot of demand conditions in India’s manufacturing sector¹.

Highlights:

1) Capacity Utilisation (CU): At the aggregate level, CU rose by 0.2 percentage points to 76.1 per cent in Q4:2018-19, co-moving with de-trended manufacturing output in the index of industrial production (IIP) (Chart 1). Seasonally adjusted CU, however, declined by 1.1 percentage points to 74.5 per cent in Q4:2018-19.

2) Order Books: Although fewer new orders were received in Q4:2018-19 relative to the preceding quarter, order books increased on a year on year basis and moved into expansion zone on the back of favourable base effects (Chart 2).

3) Finished Goods Inventory (FGI) to Sales Ratio: A rise in the ratio of FGI to sales essentially reflected a decline in sales (Chart 3).

4) Raw Material Inventory (RMI) to Sales Ratio: The rise in the ratio of RMI to sales was entirely due to contraction in sales (Chart 3).

Historical time series have been made available in excel format.

ANNEX 1: Data Tables

¹ The survey responses are voluntary. The 44th round of the OBICUS covering 909 manufacturing companies with reference period as October-December 2018 was released on the RBI website on April 04, 2019.