Irish businesses rank second in the world when it comes to optimism for exports in 2011, according to a global survey.
 
The Grant Thornton International Business Report (IBR), which covers 39 countries worldwide, shows that German and Irish PHBs rank joint second  (41%) in expectations for exports in 2011.
 
The overall top spot was taken by Turkey with an optimism level of 61%.
 
On a global level, IBR 2011 shows that’s expectations amongst PHBs for exports has increased from 21% in 2010 to 25% in 2011 with only 3% expecting a decrease and 22% expecting exports to remain the same as 2010.
 
Pat Burke, Partner in Grant Thornton said: “Irish businesses are going to have to look abroad if they are going to succeed in 2011,” said Burke.
 
On a less positive note, Irish business owners are the 3rd most pessimistic in the world.
 
The result comes despite renewed Government efforts to improve the lot of business owners across the country.
 
The IBR shows Ireland ranked ahead of only Spain and Japan in the pessimism rankings in the worldwide survey.
 
The report also documented the opinions of Irish business owners in a number of other areas including their expectations around selling prices, profit levels and employment for the coming year.
 
The 2011 IBR shows that Irish firms are much more optimistic for an increase in selling prices, when compared with 2010.
 
“There’s been a 9% increase in businesses expecting prices to increase in the coming year, ” said Burke.
 
On profit levels, Irish firms are more confident of increased profit levels with 73% of firms expecting profits to continue at current level or increase the money they make on their products in 2011.
 
The majority of Irish firms expect a further decrease in employment in 2011, with a balance percentage of -14 registering their pessimism on Irish jobs in 2011.
 
“The pessimistic outlook for Ireland is disappointing, however, the survey does give some reason for optimism with improved outlooks for profitability and revenue.”
 
“Three quarters of Irish businesses expect to increase or maintain profitability in the coming year- this is because they have trimmed the fat and taken difficult decisions in 2009 and 2010.”
 
The IBR, which surveys the opinions of over 11,000 business owners annually across the world, also showed that nearly 45 per cent of privately held businesses in Ireland have reduced pay in the past 12 months.
 
A further 50 per cent of Irish companies have introduced a pay freeze in the last year.
 
“Lots of employees will be getting paycheques this month with the increased taxes introduced in Budget 2011 - the fact that 97% of Irish businesses either froze or reduced pay in the last 12 months puts their burden in context,” said Burke.
 
International

Outside of Ireland, our closest trading partner the UK, where George Osborne has recently implemented radical changes, comes in at 35th out of 39 countries in the survey in the pessimism survey.  Just 33% of UK business owners expressed confidence for 2011.
 
The IBR shows that Latin America is the most optimistic region in the world, with three out of four private business owners optimistic about business prospects in 2011.
 
India’s economic success looks like it’s on track to continue in 2011 – the country ranks 2nd in the world in economic outlook in 2011.
 
Closer to home, results from Europe show an economically divided continent with Germany, Sweden and Finland all demonstrating strong optimism for the year to come.
 
However, countries that have been affected by the ongoing debt crisis including Ireland, Greece and Spain, all returned low confidence for the coming year.
 
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Pat Burke
Grant Thornton
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