Executives doubt yuan pledge
A survey among top foreign business executives in Shanghai has shown more than half of them remained unconvinced by the mainland government's repeated vows not to devalue the yuan, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The survey showed that 37 per cent of 101 top executives replied 'perhaps' when asked 'will the yuan be devalued in the near future'.
Another 17 per cent of them were quite sure of a devaluation and 8 per cent said one would definitely occur.
In addition, 21 per cent were uncertain with only 11 per cent believing the yuan would definitely not be devalued in the near future.
Almost 80 per cent of the respondents polled are company executives of foreign-funded and wholly owned companies in Shanghai. Of the 101 companies, Asia-based companies accounted for 55 per cent with Europe-based companies 25 per cent and US-based companies 12 per cent.
The survey also found that 16 per cent of the firms said they had suffered significantly from the Asian financial crisis while 28 per cent said they were moderately hit. Thirty per cent of the companies said the impact on their business was minimal.
Seventy-nine per cent of the executives rated their companies' growth prospects as either excellent, fairly good or somewhat good for the next two years. That was about 10 per cent lower than the result in a similar survey in March.
About half of the executives felt their biggest headache in doing business in the mainland was coping with frequent changes of government regulations and policies.
