Azernews.Az

By Kamila Aliyeva

Roughly 66 percent of chief executives of companies in Azerbaijan are confident in the growth prospects of their companies’ profits, Managing Partner of PwC Azerbaijan Movlan Pashayev said at a presentation of the report 'CEO Survey-2018' in Baku on March 15.

When conducting a similar survey two years ago, the mood and prospects of both global and local leaders were rather gloomy, the managing partner of PwC noted.

“It is very gratifying that Azerbaijan managed to overcome many of the challenges it faced in the economy in a comparatively short two-year period. The report for 2018 showed that 66 percent of executives are confident in the prospects of growth of profits of their companies,” Pashayev said.

He said that the level of optimism of the CEOs, both globally and in Azerbaijan, is the highest since 2010.

“This level has almost doubled compared to the previous survey. The leaders see growth prospects in the short and medium term for their business, while economic and commodity prices are stabilizing, with many countries pursuing institutional reforms and diversification. The recent crisis has led to disruptions, and it turned out to be the main catalyst for changes, having a positive impact on both private and public sector enterprises, forcing them to review their strategies and business models,” Pashayev said.

He went on to say that 45 percent of executives expect an increase in global economic growth over the next 12 months, compared to 23 percent two years ago, according to the Managing Partner of PwC.

“This roughly corresponds to the global figure: thus, 57 percent of the world-wide polled CEOs believe that the economy will grow,” Pashayev said.

PwC’s managing partner emphasized that the CEOs also identified the main threats directly to his or her business.

“In particular, 83 percent of the respondents see a threat in the lack of professional skills in the market and in the lack of confidence in this business (two years ago this item was in sixth place.) Another 75 percent identified changes in the behavior and costs of consumers,” Pashayev said.

He noted that among the main foreign attractive markets, the leaders singled out, like a year ago, Russia and Turkey.

“At the same time, China entered the top three this year, pushing Iran, and this time Iran did not even get into the top six, only three percent of respondents voted for it, and we believe that this reflects current geopolitical and economic trends,” said Pashayev.

PwC's managing partner noted that today only three percent of the surveyed executives do not exclude the possibility of staff reduction (against 20 percent worldwide), while last time this figure was 50 percent in Azerbaijan.

“Moreover, today 50 percent of executives are going to increase the staff of employees,” Pashayev said.

The CEO survey report is being compiled for 19 years and is presented annually at the Davos Forum. For Azerbaijan this survey was compiled for the second time. The purpose of the study is to identify patterns in the global economy, which can be an additional guide for the business community and politicians in decision-making.

In the survey on Azerbaijan, 40 heads of both public and private companies from leading sectors of the economy took part.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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