Zee Beam News

25.01.2006 MosNews - Some 71 percent of chief executives worldwide plan to expand businesses in Russia, Brazil, India or China during the next three years, PricewaterhouseCoopers said, citing a survey of 1,400 CEOs that was released on Tuesday, Jan. 24. Report was quoted by the Reuters agency. The consulting group's ninth annual CEO survey also found that expansion overseas is increasingly attracting companies of all sizes searching for new markets and is no longer limited to multinational giants seeking lower costs. Among other findings in the full report, released in conjunction with the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, nearly two-thirds of CEOs were "optimistic" about their current and future prospects for global expansion. PwC also found that government regulations remain the biggest barriers to global expansion and the greatest source of complexity for companies. By comparison, terrorism and the anti-globalization movement are the least problematic challenges, while language and cultural differences are the least likely sources of complexity. Among the emerging market countries, China was the most popular, named by 55 percent of the respondents, followed by India (36 percent), Brazil (33 percent) and Russia (27 percent). According to the report, CEOs say they are globalizing to access new markets —- not just to cut costs. Some 78 percent of the CEOs said they were going global to find new customers, while only 48 percent said they were looking to reduce costs.