American executives’ confidence about growth in next three years cuts a stark contrast with global outlook, KPMG survey shows

American executives are the most optimistic about the prospects of economic growth over the next three years, drawing a stark contrast with corporate chieftains in 10 other countries, according to a KPMG survey.

A poll of 1,300 chief executives in 11 of the world’s largest economies showed that 87 per cent of US executives were either “confident” or “very confident” about the prospects of economic growth in the next three years, an improvement from 52 per cent last year.

The rising confidence of American executives was a stark contrast to the remainder of the respondents from the 10 next-biggest economies. Optimism among Chinese executives fell by a third to 48 per cent, from 76 per cent during the same period. Confidence was also low among UK executives at 43 per cent and those from France at 44 per cent, with Australians being the most pessimistic at 38 per cent, according to KPMG’s 2019 China CEO Outlook survey, the fifth in its series.

“American CEOs are more positive as the economy has been robust in the past two years” with low unemployment rate, while the stock market “had been doing well,” KPMG China chairman Benny Liu said in an interview with South China Morning Post. “Many of the US companies are also doing well and they therefore have more confidence in the global economic growth outlook.”

The US economy has shown clear signs of picking up the pace since its slowdown in the first three months of the year, with forecasts ranging from Bloomberg’s median forecast of 3.4 per cent to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s 4.5 per cent pace.