Philippine CEOs more confident on revenue growth than APEC CEOs — poll

MANILA, Philippines — Despite trade fictions, Asia-Pacific CEOs expect their business to become more global and automated with Philippine business leaders expressing higher optimism on their revenue prospects compared to those in the region, a survey showed.

Forty-nine percent of Filipino CEOs said they are “very confident” about their organization’s prospects for revenue growth in the Philippines in the next 12 months, PricewaterhouseCoopers reported Wednesday, ahead of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam.

This was higher in comparison to APEC economies, which logged a 37 percent confidence. However, confidence about revenue surge among Philippine CEOs was lower than 2016’s 65 percent.

Meanwhile, 59 percent of Filipino business leaders said they expect their company’s global footprint to expand over the next three years while 63 percent of the region has the same sentiment.

Compared to a year ago, Philippine CEOs, however, are becoming less confident in terms of increasing profit margins in their domestic operations at 31 percent, compared to 29 percent of APEC CEOs that think the same.

Nonetheless, industry leaders from the Philippines and APEC agreed that automating certain functions in their organizations is the most effective strategy for them to adapt and profit in an “increasingly digital age” over the next three years.

“After victories of nationalist parties and rhetoric against free trade, we looked for evidence of a pullback from the global economy but found little,” PwC said.

“Stronger prospects for GDP growth in some APEC economies and export markets in Europe are bolstering sentiment. International trade flows are picking up, projected to outpace global economic growth in 2017 for the first time in five years, according to the World Trade Organization,” it added.

“Over the next three years, Asia Pacific CEOs expect their businesses will become more global, more automated and more tied to a region that they believe is slowly and steadily becoming more economically cohesive.”

This year’s study polled 1,412 industry leaders across 21 APEC economies, PwC said.