Business executives in Croatia are still among the most pessimistic in central Europe, with as many as 57 percent of them believing that the economic situation in the country will deteriorate in the next six months, a survey conducted by the international consulting firm Deloitte shows.
However, 17 percent of those polled expect a better outlook in the next six months while a year ago no respondent in Croatia believed in the improvement.
Business people throughout central Europe are still cautious but their optimism about the region's economic recovery is on a steady rise.
Croatian executives have pessimistic expectations about economic outlooks, according to the findings of the survey conducted in the second quarter of 2010 among 200 executives in top companies in six central European countries: Croatia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania.
It is interesting to see that directors' position on financial prospects of their companies is far more positive than their expectations about economic prospects of their respective countries.
This trend is most striking in Croatia with 40 percent of executives believing in the positive prospects of their companies. On the other hand, only 13 percent expressed pessimism about their own companies.
Poland, unscathed by the recession in 2009, is most optimistic, Slaven Curic, a manager in Deloitte's financial consultation department, said at the presentation of the survey's findings in Zagreb last Tuesday.
