The survey results, released at the 2009 World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, found that only 21% of CEOs worldwide said they were very confident of revenue growth in 2009. This marks a 50% drop on the firm’s previous year’s results.

Pessimism was the over-riding finding of the report regardless of geographic region, business sector or level of economic development. Only 15% of CEOs in North America and 15% in western Europe expressed confidence about growth prospects for the next 12 months. This compared with 21% in the emerging economies of central and eastern Europe, 31% in Asia-Pacific, and 21% in Latin America.