Irish business owners optimistic

IRISH business owners are the most optimistic in Europe and rank second globally.

This is according to a survey conducted by Grant Thornton in 30 countries around the world.

The survey revealed that 84% of Irish business owners are positive about the coming year, compared with 79% last year.

Partner with Grant Thornton Gearóid Costelloe said: “The Irish economy still continues to confound even the most benign predictions of a slowdown.”

He added that the recent Budget helped the situation by not interfering in the two key areas of the economy, construction and retail.

“The hope is that the predicted and inevitable slowdown will come as the new public sector capital programme gains in pace over the coming years,” he said.

Mr Costelloe said there is still a lot of catching up to do with infrastructure in the economy and, with proper balancing of the public and private investment programmes, construction will continue as the backbone of employment growth.

Worldwide, the most optimistic business owners, for the third year, are in India with a 93% optimism about the year ahead. In China, in the survey for the first time, the confidence score was 77%. South Africa ranks third at 80%.

In the US however, the confidence of business owners has dropped from 62% to 32% in one year and in Britain confidence levels fell from 46% to just 8%.