Less than half of Russia's senior financial professionals polled believe that their company's business prospects have improved since last year, according to the results of a survey carried out by EuroFinance, which were published Tuesday.
The survey was conducted at a recent financial conference and shows that only 46 percent of treasurers and CFOs are optimistic about the current business climate — a 3 percent decrease over last year's number.
Similar surveys carried out across the globe have shown that business confidence is lowest in Europe, where only 37 percent of financial experts expressed optimism in their company's current development prospects.
Optimism was highest amongst finance managers in West Africa, where 90 percent of respondents took a positive stance on the current business climate. In the Middle East and Brazil, this figure stood at 78 percent, while in Mexico 74 percent of those questioned said that they felt positively about their company's business prospects.
Despite the comparatively pessimistic results recorded in Russia, it appears that optimism does remains in some quarters.
Among local corporate treasurers polled, 74 percent said they saw no immediate problems regarding access to long-term financing, said Katherine Morton, the managing editor of EuroFinance.
