According to PricewaterhouseCoopers' (PwC) 13th Annual Global CEO Survey, the world's economic leaders are more optimistic about the future than they were at this time last year. The most optimistic of all were Canadian CEOs.
Four out of five (81%) CEOs worldwide expressed some measure of confidence about their prospects for the next 12 months, according to the survey. But in Canada, fully 87% of our CEOs were confident.
While 31% of global CEOs said they are now "very confident" of the short-term prospects, 36% of Canadian CEOs were "very confident". The global number was up 10 percentage points from last year, which was the lowest point recorded since PwC began its surveys.
About half of Canadian CEOs reported plans to increase staffing this year, compared to not quite 40% of those around the globe.
Canadian CEOs are more likely to say their industry's recovery is underway (38%) than their global counterparts (23%).
Twenty-six per cent of Canadian CEOs believe the global recovery is already underway, compared to 13% of their counterparts around the world.
Finally, some good economic news to ponder after a year of doom-and-gloom following the economic crisis precipitated by so many banks' risky lending policies.
For those of us following metals prices, we have watched the collapse of those prices bottom out last year and, once more, resume their upward climb. Already this year the price of gold is 25% higher and silver 50% higher than they were at the end of 2009. Non-ferrous metals are enjoying even better results: Nickel is up 86%; copper is up 136%; aluminum is up 52%; zinc is up 112%; molybdenum oxide is up 57% and lead has risen 130%. There have been some price declines among minor metals and uranium, but the general trend is toward stronger prices.
Many economic reports focus on the Chinese economy. When it is strong, everyone is optimistic. When the Chinese government attempts to control it, the rest of the world's investors become pessimistic very quickly.
In these days of instant news and opinion, I wonder if too much attention is given to the Chinese. I think sometimes the "experts" are ignoring other economies that might temper the global outlook. I fear we, and by "we" I mean the educated public, are losing valuable perspective by concentrating so much on only one country.
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