CEOs say China is best investment site: survey

26 January 2006 07:38  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--A majority of chief executive officers (CEO) plan to invest in China in the next three years to get access to existing customers and attract new ones, a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) survey has shown.

Over half of the 1,410 CEOs from 45 countries chose China as the top investment site. India was ranked as the second most attractive site and Brazil third.

“Overwhelmingly, CEOs said their focus was not on outsourcing, offshoring or just producing at lower costs," PwC CEO Samuel DiPiazza Jr was quoted as saying in media reports. “A large majority said it was about winning market access.”

Most respondents agreed that business opportunities in China were significant compared with other emerging markets such as India, Brazil and Russia.

“China and Russia, once viewed as economies fraught with risk, are now seen as huge opportunities,” according to the report. “This could either mean that the perceived risk with regard to these economies has lessened or that the advantages in terms of new markets and customers outweigh the risk.”

PwC, a US accounting and consulting firm based in New York, conducted the survey in the fourth quarter of 2005. It was released on Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

China said on Wednesday that its gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 9.9% in 2005, moving it ahead of France and the UK as the world’s fourth largest economy. Chinese officials said that an average growth rate of 10% was sustainable for several years, although analysts were sceptical.

By: Florence Tan
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