Business leaders remain confused on 2009

The Economic Observer has done a major survey among China's business leaders on what they expect for 2009. Unfortunately, the laudable initiatives leaves us as clueless as we were before.

According to a recent survey conducted by the Economic Observer, leading corporate chiefs were mostly pessimistic about the general economic outlook of 2009. However, many of them projected double-digit growth in profits for their own firms in the coming year.

This suggests that the pessimism over 2009 has been triggered off by the fact that even double-digit growth is not good enough for them. Only 30 percent thought their own industry would become less lucrative over the year, while ten percent of the business leaders would expect still more than 30 percent growth.
Most troublesome news comes from the employment side:

The survey showed 20% of these companies would freeze the intake of permanent staff in 2009, and another 20% planned to cut staff.

CommercialMaria Korolov
China business leaders
by Fons1 via Flickr
Trying to figure out what 2009 means for your business in China? Ask one of our speakers at the China Speakers Bureau.

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