Romanian CEOs are among the most confident business leaders in the world, PwC study shows

More Romanian CEOs are optimistic about revenue growth prospects, mainly due to the economic growth registered in last three years and the good estimates for this year, according to PwC’s Global CEO Survey 2016. Half of the local CEOs are very confident of revenue growth in their company over the next 12 months, up by six percentage points from last year’s 44% and 15 pp over the global average (35%). This makes Romanian CEOs some of the most confident business leaders in the world, just behind those of India (64%) and Spain (54%), but well above those from Western or Eastern Europe. On the medium term, 61% of the Romanian CEOs are very confident about their own company’s prospects for revenue growth over the next 3 years. The figure is 7 percentage points higher than the 54% registered in 2014, and well above the global average of 49%. This trend also translates into optimism regarding future employment, according to PwC. About 56% of local CEOs in Romania intend to increase headcount in the next 12 month while only 18% plan to lay off employees this year. “The optimism of Romanian CEOs is fed by the economic growth of the past three years, as well as the estimates for Romania’s GDP growth in 2016, which stands at 4%. However, we should keep an eye on the gathering storm on the emerging markets and the global capital markets and make sure that a future global crisis does not take us by surprise, just like it did back in 2008,” said Ionut Simion, Country Managing Partner, PwC Romania. “In order to put Romania’s economy into a safe harbour, we need to keep up the pace of structural reforms, cutting red tape, reforming the public sector and improving the country’s infrastructure, in order to maintain Romania as an attractive investment destination,” he added. On a global level, 35% of the CEOs are very confident of revenue growth in their company over the following 12 months, down from 39% last year. The biggest turnaround is seen in Taiwan, where only 19% are very confident of short-term company growth, compared to 65% last year. However, Switzerland has the lowest confidence with only 16% of Swiss CEOs very confident of revenue growth compared with 24% in 2015. Confidence in revenue growth went down for nearly every major economy in the world, according to the PwC survey. For example, in China only 24% of the CEOs are very confident in company growth on a short term, down from 36% in 2015, in the US – 33% vs. 46% in 2015, and in the UK – 33% vs. 39% last year. Half of CEOs in Romania are very optimistic about revenue growth What keeps Romanian CEOs up at night? Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com