37% of Irish bosses believe Britain ‘will never adopt euro’

TWO-IN-FIVE company bosses in Ireland believe Britain will never adopt the euro currency.

A year ago just one-in-four chief executives of Irish companies thought that Britain would never become part of euroland, according to the latest CB Richard Ellis Gunne annual survey of the chief executives of the top 1,000 companies in Ireland.

The survey found 37% of those who responded to the survey in 2004 expect that Britain will never entereuroland compared with 25% last year.

Just 1% expects Britain to enter the eurozone within one to two years with 62% expecting them to enter the eurozone within two to four years.

Speaking at the Irish Property Convention 2004, CB Richard Ellis Gunne head of research Marie Hunt also revealed that over 50% of respondents expect Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth of between 2% and 4% to be achieved in Ireland in 2005, with a further 42% expecting that Irish GDP growth in 2005 would be in the order of 4% to 6%.

“Less than 6% expect between 0% and 2% growth in the economy next year, while less than 2% expect growth to exceed 6% in 2005,” she added.

More that half of respondents, 52%, believe the Asian economy was likely to be the best performing economy over the next three years, 24% picked the US, 16% said the eurozone and 8% identified Britain as the most likely to outperform other economies in the period to 2007.

Most respondents, 85%, expect interest rates to rise slightly in 2005.

Competitiveness was identified by the chief executives as being the biggest challenge facing the Irish Government next year.

“As a result, 44% of respondents expect foreign direct investment into Ireland is likely to remain at current levels next year with only 26% expecting a slight increase in foreign direct investment in 2005,” Ms Hunt said.