Gold Magazine February - March 2013, Issue 23 | Page 84

TAXATION
SURVEY

CEO confidence
in growth down
The majority of CEOs expect the global economy to remain stalled in 2013

O

nly 36% of
CEOs worldwide are ‘very
confident’ of
their company’s
growth prospects
in the next 12
months, according to PwC’s
16th Annual
Global CEO Survey. That’s down
from 40% who were ‘very confident’ of
short term growth last year and 48% in
2011, but still above the lows of 31% and
21% in 2010 and 2009.
For PwC’s 16th Annual Global CEO
Survey, 1,330 interviews were conducted
in 68 countries during the last quarter of
2012. By region, 449 interviews were conducted in Asia Pacific, 312 in Western Europe, 227 in North America, 165 in Latin
America, 95 in Central & Eastern Europe,
50 in Africa and 32 in the Middle East.
Looking at the economy generally, 28%
of CEOs say the global economy will
decline further in 2013, and only 18%
predict economic improvement; 52% say
it will stay the same. While the CEOs’
outlook remains gloomy, the forecast is an
improvement on last year when 48% of
CEOs predicted the global economy would
decline in 2012.
Longer term, overall CEO confidence
remained stable; 46% of CEOs worldwide
said they were very con fident of growth
prospects in the next three years, about the
same as last year. CEOs in Africa and the
Middle East were most confident of long
term growth, at 62% and 56% respectively.

In North America, 51% were ‘very confident’ of long term growth, while 52% in
Asia Pacific were very confident. Long term
confidence was weakest in Europe at 34%.
Releasing the survey results on the first
day of the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Dennis M. Nally,
Chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers
International, said: “CEOs remain cautious
about their short term prospects and the
outlook for the global economy. However,
given the high levels of concern among
CEOs about issues such as over-regulation,
government debt, capital market instability,
it is no surprise that CEO confidence has
declined in the last 12 months”.
As the difficult economic conditions
persist, CEOs are generally more worried
about a wider range of issues than they
were a year ago. Top of the list is a concern
among 81% of CEOs about continuing
uncertainty over economic growth.
Sending a clear message to governments around the world, other key CEO
worries are the government response to
the fiscal deficit (71%), over-regulation
(69%) and the lack of stability in capital
markets (61%). CEO concerns about overregulation are at their highest since 2006.
When asked directly about the government
response to the regulatory burden, CEOs
are even more blunt, with just 12% agreeing that their government has reduced the
regulatory burden in the last year.
When asked about the major threats to
their business growth, CEOs also cited the
increasing tax burden (62%), availability of
key skills (58%) and the cost of energy and
raw materials (52%).
In order to build organisations that can

28% of CEOs

say the global
economy will
decline further
in 2013 and
only 18%
predict economic
improvement

82 Gold THE INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENT, FINANCE & PROFESSIONAL SERVICES MAGAZINE OF CYPRUS

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01/02/2013 12:35