Nearly half of the Indian CEOs surveyed are “very confident” about revenue gains for their companies in the next 12 months, even as they cited availability of skilled talent and corruption as major business threats, as per a PwC study.

According to PwC’s 17th Annual Global CEO survey, released by the World Economic Forum here, 49 per cent of Indian business heads are very confident about their growth prospects in the next 12 months, higher than > the global average (39 per cent).

India was ranked fourth in the global list in terms of CEO confidence in their respective company’s growth prospects.

The list was topped by Russia, where as many as 53 per cent of business heads are very confident about the revenue growth of their companies in the next 12 months, followed by Mexico (51 per cent), Korea (50 per cent) in the second and third position.

China/Hong Kong was ranked fifth in the list with 48 per cent of business heads showing confidence in their respective companies growth prospects in the next 12 months.

In the longer term as well, an encouraging 70 per cent of Indian business heads are very confident about their growth prospects — by far the greatest percentage in the world, the survey said.

Around 38 per cent of Indian CEOs see opportunities in the next 12 months coming from product/service innovation, while 27 per cent cited increased share in existing markets and 22 per cent see opportunities in new geographic markets.

Emerging economies were cited as the most important region for the Indian corporates for growth. The US, UAE and South Africa were also among their top picks.

Meanwhile, the top potential economic and policy threats highlighted by Indian CEOs was exchange rate volatility, over-regulation, inadequate infrastructure and government response to fiscal deficit and debt burden.

Around 81 per cent of Indian CEOs cited availability of key skills as a major concern, followed by bribery and corruption (70 per cent) and rising labour costs in high-growth markets (65 per cent) as key business threats.

For the said survey, 1,344 interviews were conducted in 68 nations during the last quarter of 2013.

By region, 445 interviews were conducted in Asia Pacific, 442 in Europe, 212 in North America, 165 in Latin America, 45 in Africa and 35 in West Asia.

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