Whether you’re think the glass is half full or half empty, there’s something just for you in the latest survey of private business capital spending.

The survey from the Australian Bureau of Statistics is in two parts.

One covers what’s already happened.

The figures released on Thursday, for the March quarter, show the second consecutive four per cent quarterly fall in capital expenditure.

This measure of capex, as economists call it, has now reached its lowest point since the end of 2011, so it’s arguable that glass is half empty.

That’s because the mining investment boom is fizzling out.

Mining capex dropped nine per cent in the quarter to a two-year low.

But the other sectors covered by the survey posted a combined rise in capex of two per cent.

It’s not much, the half-emptiers might say.

Despite the minor gain, non-mining capex is still at a level first reached seven years ago when the economy was 16 per cent smaller than it is now.

But better times could lie ahead.

That other part is the survey of the investment plans of businesses extending out to June 2015.

The projections are a bit flaky, with a wide and variable gap between plans and outcomes.

But for an advance indicator of capex, a key driver of economic growth, the projections are much better than the next best alternative – blind guesswork.

After adjusting for the average bias in predictions – and bearing in mind these projections aren’t adjusted for inflation as the historical figures are – they confirm that the mining investment boom is continuing to fade.

The fall in mining capex flagged by the projections could plausibly range from five to 30 per cent in 2014/15 but is likely to come in at around 10 to 20 per cent.

That would follow a fall of about three or four per cent in the current year.

But overly focusing on mining can make the glass appear emptier than it really is.

For more bullish folk, the good news is that the figures also suggest the non-mining investment, the great hope for the economy’s renewal, is picking up.

The increase in 2014/15 is unlikely to be sizeable – most likely no more than the economy’s growth rate.

But it would be the second annual rise in capex by the non-mining sectors.

And the value of non-mining capex planned for 2014/15 was lifted by 12 per cent between this quarterly survey and the previous one.

That was the biggest uplift in this stage of the survey cycle since the projections for 2007/08.

So the half-fullers could argue, with some good reason, that the platform is being set for a more vigorous pickup in capex as the transition away from mining finally gathers momentum.