Why the Indian CEOs are on a high

India Inc chief executives seem more confident about business prospects in the coming year than their global peers.

Of those approached by PricewaterhouseCoopers for its 18th annual global chief executive officer survey, 62 per cent were optimistic about the prospects next year, compared with 49 per cent in the previous annual survey.

But is this optimism backed by fundamentals?

Part of the growing optimism could be on account of the expectation of a pick-up in the domestic economy.

However, given that the absence of adequate infrastructure remains a key stumbling block, movement on which is seen as slow, an immediate return to a high-growth trajectory is unlikely.

Further, with major economies across the world showing signs of sluggishness, export growth is likely to remain subdued.

The uncertainty is compounded by the fact that the US Federal Reserve might raise rates in the second half of the year.

In sharp contrast with previous years, the survey notes, global CEOs are more upbeat about the US economy, which has overtaken China as the most important foreign growth market.

The UK now ranks higher than Brazil, and Japan is better than Russia. Australia has entered the top 10 club by ousting Mexico.

For Indian CEOs, though, the US, China and the UK, followed by Japan and Indonesia, are the most important markets.

An interesting point the survey makes is that the threat perception to growth prospects in China is higher than in India.

On key issues like increasing tax burden, access to affordable capital and availability of key skills, a larger percentage of respondents in China are extremely (or somewhat) concerned than their Indian counterparts