Most CEOs Say Global Growth Will Slow In 2020: PwC

More than 50% of corporate CEOs surveyed by PwC said global economic growth could slow down this year, reported Reuters.

What Happened

Chief executives at some of the world’s top companies entered 2020 on a cautious note, with 53% of them anticipating a global economic slowdown amid ongoing geopolitical uncertainty, said PwC’s 23rd Annual Global CEO Survey.

The results, published on Monday, showed the highest level of pessimism since the first survey in 2012. Last year, only 29% of CEOs anticipated economic slowdown.

Among the 1,581 professionals surveyed, 27% said they were “very confident” about their revenue growth prospect in 2020, compared to 35% who said the same last year and the lowest level PwC has seen since 2009.

Considering the decreasing optimism among global CEOs, PwC has cut its global growth outlook to 2.4% for 2020.

“Given the lingering uncertainty over trade tensions, geopolitical issues and the lack of agreement on how to deal with climate change, the drop in confidence in economic growth is not surprising — even if the scale of the change in mood is,” said the chairman of PwC’s international network, Bob Moritz.

Why It Matters

The latest results came a few weeks after Deloitte had released the results of its CFO Signals™ Survey, in which 97% of chief financial officers predicted an economic slowdown in 2020.

The PwC survey was conducted between September and October last year, months before the US–China trade deal was signed on Jan. 15, 2020.

Stocks of many global companies climbed to a record high last week after the two countries signed the long-anticipated phase one trade deal to defuse their trade tensions.