Business confidence in Pakistan has been on the rise almost steadily for a year and a half and is now higher than at any point in the last three years, reveal new findings from ACCA’s (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) and the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) Global Economic Conditions Survey (GECS).
Q1 results for Pakistan show that 43% of respondents reported confidence gains, up from 36% in late 2013, while only 30% reported losses, down from 41% previously.
However, for the time being, the fundamentals do not fully support such confidence levels, although they do point to a recovery from the uncertainties of the electoral cycle. The macro-economic outlook is positive, but perceptions of the recovery appear to have reached a ceiling in late 2013.
In Q1, a majority of respondents (55%, unchanged from Q4 2013) were optimistic about the state of the economy while 39% were pessimistic (up from 34% in late 2013).
