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Signs of economic recovery based on fragile evidence
ACCA survey warns against complacency
08 Sep 2009
ACCA has repeated its call to world economic leaders to guard against complacency and not assume that the global recession is over merely because of a reduced level of panic over the economic crisis.
The findings of ACCA's latest Global Economic Conditions survey of 1,200 finance professionals in 92 countries reveals that while more finance professionals now believe the downturn has 'bottomed out', they also feel a reliable recovery is still unlikely to return before late 2010.
'Our survey shows that business confidence is recovering more slowly in the third quarter than earlier in the year when respondents may have stopped panicking about a recession which had seemed to be out of control,' said Helen Brand, ACCA chief executive. 'The evidence is that little has changed in trading or orders to suggest that a reliable recovery will happen before the end of 2010.
'We have already warned governments not to allow a growth in confidence to lead to complacency, which may stop them from taking necessary steps to reform the economic system. While the situation may not worsen, the view from finance professionals is that a sustained recovery is still some way off and that many economies are in a fragile state.'
The survey also found that while business confidence continued to recover in the third quarter of 2009, those who saw improvements in conditions (31%) were still outnumbered by those who had lost confidence (33%).
An increasing percentage of members (34%) also believe that global economic conditions are either about to improve or are already improving, though the emerging consensus, expressed by 44% of respondents, appears to be that current conditions mark the bottom of the downturn and will persist for some time.