Global Economy Facing Dangerous Period of Uncertainty, says Worldwide Survey of Finance Professionals

The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) have conducted a survey together known as the Global Economic Conditions Survey (GECS) for the last three months of the year 2014. The survey has indicated that the confidence of business world in the capital spending and real economy has deteriorated. The surveying bodies notified that only the selective growing markets and ongoing financials’ strength are assisting to maintain the impression of improvement.

The Global Economic Conditions Survey for last quarter of 2014 was conducted by collecting the views of more than 1,000 finance professionals around the globe. The results were not specifically worrying. The results indicated that 1/3 (33% as compared to 32% in previous quarter) of the survey participants reported a decline in confidence in the last 3 months of 2014. On the other hand, almost 28% of the participants experienced an increase in their confidence (as compared to 30% in previous quarter).

More than the half participants (58%) from around the world are still hopeful about economic improvements in their respective countries while around 37% remain pessimistic. These results don’t create any stressful situation themselves but the GECS report has deeply analyzed the results in order to identify some alarming trends such as, continuous second quarter which has reported a declined confidence in the economy around the globe, an increased dependence on government disbursements and decrease in the investments across the globe.

A senior economic analyst at ACCA and the writer of this report, Manos Schizas, has noted that the optimism of finance sector has concealed the real face of the economic situation where investment has remained passive around the world due to lack of real business opportunities despite the fact that capital is most easily accessible since the time of economic crunch. The decline in demand of commodities like oil has also impacted emerging markets which rely on export of such commodities.

All these elements create serious concerns regarding the economic confidence and raises questions over the world economy’s reaction towards the disrupting global market.