The Financial Times and The Economist today publish the results from the latest Global Business Barometer, which reveals that business leaders’ confidence in the global economy fell sharply in the last quarter.

The Global Business Barometer surveyed over 1,500 business executives from around the world between June 22 and July 29 with the aim of gauging changes in business sentiment.

The findings showed that 33.8% of business leaders felt conditions in the global economy will worsen in the next six months, compared to 23.3% who think it will improve.  This pessimism varied from region to region, with executives in some emerging markets showing more confidence about the global economic outlook than their peers in the US and Western Europe.

Lionel Barber, editor of the Financial Times, said: “The latest results from the FT/Economist Business Barometer make it clear that even before the current market turmoil started, business leaders were becoming increasingly concerned about the deteriorating global economy. The market turmoil is only likely to reinforce the prevailing view that ‘economic and market risk’ is seen as the greatest threat to their companies.”

The barometer with interactive graphics can be found at http://on.ft.com/pNzZee.

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