Optimism Index of 36 economies in 2010 (infographic)
Monday, March 01, 2010
| Posted by: Fiona Cullinan
Categories:
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Business,
Finance
| Tags: recession,
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recovery,
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privately held businesses,
International Business Report,
optimism, double-dip
Can you guess which country is the most economically optimistic in the world right now? Would China be top of your list? Or perhaps India? If so, then you’d be wrong on both counts. Grant Thornton’s latest infographic reveals which economies are smiling, which are po-faced and which are downright unhappy about their projected revenues. Here’s how we put it together…
Click here to view the infographic at a larger size.
Data sources
The figures were taken from Grant Thornton’s International Business Report (IBR) for 2010.
The IBR is our annual survey of the views of thousands of senior executives in privately held businesses (PHBs) all over the world. Launched in 1992 in nine European countries, the report now surveys more than 7,400 PHBs in 36 economies, and you can find out more on the survey methodology here. The full results will be published soon on the IBR website.
For our Optimism Index infographic, we focused on the projected revenue trends for each economy in 2010, with businesses from each nation noting whether their projected revenue earnings were set to rise, fall or remain static.
Which country is the most optimistic?
Top of the optimism index was (did you guess?) Vietnam. Asian economies have generally rebounded from the recession faster than Western economies, partly because of fiscal stimulus measures, but also because of growing intra-regional trade.
A happy picture on the revenue front may not tell the whole story, however. Fast economic growth is also putting growing pressure on prices – particularly in Vietnam where the rate of inflation is on the rise toward double digits and the currency has recently been devalued several times as a result.
Which country is the most pessimistic?
Languishing at the bottom of the Optimism Index was Japan – which was also running last in our infographic on the race to economic growth (see below). But, as we all know, when something is at the bottom of the heap, it can be a great time for investors to buy in – and there have been many reports that have put investing in Japan back on the agenda in 2010, such as these ones from the FT.com.
Is the UK happy?
Well, not exactly, But it’s not ‘sad’ either. In fact, we recently reported that optimism among UK PHBs on their economic outlook for 2010 dramatically increased over the past year, according to the latest IBR. But having only just emerged from recession and the recovery outlook appearing weak, there are also growing fears of a double-dip recession not too far ahead. It’s a case of ‘watch this face’ to see if the UK emerges with a smile or a grimace by the end of 2010.
View more Grant Thornton infographics:
* Who’s winning the global race to economic growth?
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