Any theories that the global economy is on the road to recovery look more like wishful thinking if ACCA's latest Global Economic Conditions Survey is anything to go by.
The largest number of respondents we have had for a quarterly survey – 1,200 finance professionals in 92 countries – shows that in the third quarter of 2009, while more of us believe the downturn has 'bottomed out', we also believe that a reliable recovery is still more than a year away.
Not surprisingly, there has been a reported rise in late payment as well as supplier and customer bankruptcies. Worryingly, investment in staff fell at an accelerated rate and investment in capital projects, which had previously shown signs of stabilising, seems to be weakening further.
There is good news in some parts of the world, with the Asia-Pacific region, Africa and, to some extent, Central and Eastern Europe reporting much higher levels of business confidence and more optimism than their counterparts in Western Europe and the Americas.
Does this coincide with your experiences – and when do you expect to see a sustainable upturn?
Brendan Murtagh is quite right in his analysis about the recovery.
President Obama has pointed out that recovery is fragile and it would be too early to take crutches away from the economy. The satisfactory thing is that confidence is rising. Obama has said that job losses have bottomed out. The European Commission also delivered some good news on 14 September that recession would end during this quarter.
Our economies are interlinked with each other. Recovery of the Pakistani economy depends on the economic growth of the US and Europe.
I believe that, in the second quarter of 2010, demand for Pakistani goods - especially textile products - will increase due to rise in consumption in Europe and the Americas.
Posted by: Mumtaz Hassan | 16 September 2009 at 06:23