Riffrag Business & Finance Report

Nearly three-quarters of corporate chief executives (chief executive officer / CEO) of the world view that economic growth is not stable as a potential threat to their business within the next 12 months. In addition, nearly one-third of CEOs say that they are ‘very concerned’ by global economic outlook.

Annual survey titled PwC PricewaterhouseCoopers 14th Annual Global CEO survey says about 61 percent of respondents from among the top executives were assessing other common threats that will be faced is the government’s reaction to the fiscal deficit.

Additionally, 60 percent of CEOs worry that overlapping regulation, the threat of exchange rate volatility (54 percent), and capital market conditions are unstable (52 percent) and protection (40 percent). Meanwhile, the specter of inflation revealed by less than a third of respondents.

Among the threats to the CEO’s business, 56 percent of respondents worried about the availability of talent is required, followed by an increase in taxes (55 percent), and a permanent shift in consumer behavior (48 percent).

“The lack of potential talent of special concern in Asia Pacific, Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa,” PwC said quoting the survey results.

Other global risks disclosed CEOs including political instability (58 percent), scarcity of natural resources (34 percent), climate change (27 percent), and natural disasters (25 percent).

For that, almost half of CEOs said the government’s priority should be emphasized in state infrastructure improvements. In addition, the government of a country is expected to create and maintain a skilled workforce, and ensuring the stability of the financial sector and access to affordable capital.

“More than 60 percent of CEOs agree that public spending cuts or tax increases would slow economic growth in their countries,” writes the results of the survey.

In fact, 53 percent of CEOs say their companies will increase the tax consequences of the government reaction to increase the public debt. Just over a third of CEOs say their companies have made strategic changes due to public spending cuts or tax increases both domestically and abroad.

Responding to the survey results, Chief Economist of PT Bank Danamon Tbk, Anton Gunawan, say, a number of global CEOs mainly from western countries are still worried about the investment climate constraints in some countries of the world.

“Not to mention, they still faced with the conditions of corporate recovery (post-shocks of economic crisis),” said Anton told VIVAnews.com in Jakarta.

Anton rate, especially in Indonesia, direct investment from European companies and the United States is not as big as business expansion coming from Asia. “If from Asia, many Korean firms, China, Japan, and India to Indonesia,” he said.

However, according to him, to invest in portfolio, a number of world companies have been so heavily into the country since last year. “Unlike a direct investment, portfolio foreign investment into Indonesia has been a lot,” he said.

PwC survey was conducted with 1201 respondents CEO interviews in 69 countries in the last quarter of 2010. Viewed from the region, as many as 420 interviews were conducted in Western Europe, 257 (Asia Pacific), 221 (Latin America), 148 (North America), 98 (Eastern Europe), and 57 in the Middle East and Africa.

Countries in Asia-Pacific consists of Australia (40), China (39), Hong Kong (7), India (40), Indonesia (1), Japan (75), Korea (15), Malaysia ((11), Singapore (4), Taiwan (10), Thailand (5), Vietnam (10).