Harnessing CEO Confidence In The Middle East To Accelerate Business Transformation

As 2023 gets underway, it’s no surprise to find that CEOs all over the world are far more pessimistic than they were a year ago about the state of the global economy and what it could mean for their own businesses.

- Hani Ashkar

After all, the story of the past few months has been one of resurgent inflation, rising interest rates, geopolitical tensions, supply chain disruptions, and commodity shocks, including concerns about energy security.

This gloomy sentiment is not shared by the CEOs in the Middle East, where the 26th PwC CEO survey shows that 61% of business leaders expect growth in the region to improve in 2023, compared to just 21% in North America and 18% in Europe. Almost two-thirds of CEOs in the Middle East are extremely confident or very confident about prospects for revenue growth over the next 12 months, and 71% are confident about the outlook for the next three years. This bullish view is tempered by the need to control costs.