Russian Business Loses Optimism – Grant Thornton Study

The International Business Report prepared by Grant Thornton says that Russian business is among three businesses that feel least optimistic for the outlook of their national economies over the next 12 months.

The global optimism index incorporates the results of the survey of 5,000 business leaders in 35 countries. In the final list Russia is the third least optimistic economy with only South Korea and Japan falling behind. Turkey and Thailand were also found pessimistic about their local economies.

While Ireland, Finland, New Zealand, India and Brazil top the list of the countries that feel confident about the future. The latter two countries contributed to the high index for BRIC.

Global business optimism stands at 39%, a significant decline from 54% in Q2 2018. This is the weakest optimism score recorded since 2016. Respondents surveyed by Grant Thornton all over the world named economic uncertainty and trade battle between the USA and China as the main reasons.

Optimism varies across industries as follows: oil and gas, tourism, financial services, IT, and construction and real estate are the most confident industries of all, while agriculture, mining, electricity supply, and education and social services are the least confident ones.

Grant Thornton’s experts also analysed which trends Russian and foreign business leaders expected in revenue, selling prices, exports, employment and many other areas. We will share their findings soon. Stay tuned.