Nairobi — CEOs in East Africa are optimistic about the region's economic growth in the next twelve months, with around 60 percent of them expecting an improvement.
The PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Annual Global CEO Survey also indicates that the global economy will decline in 2023.
A total of 4,410 CEOs in 105 countries took part in the survey between October and November 2022, 138 of whom were from East Africa.
The optimism may be driven by the strong economic growth recorded in the region in 2021, which was underpinned by sustained public spending on infrastructure projects.
The majority of the CEOs have realized that climate risk will impact their cost profiles and supply chains more than their physical assets.
"Combating climate change requires a coordinated, long- term plan to address the risk fully, the public and private sector must work together to achieve this," PwC Eastern Africa Regional Senior Peter Ngahu said.
Ngahu encouraged CEOs to collaborate with public and private stakeholders to mitigate the risks facing organizations.
"The risks facing organisations and society today cannot be addressed alone and in a vacuum, CEOs must continue to collaborate with a wide range of public and private sector stakeholders to efficiently mitigate those risks, build trust and generate long term value for their businesses, society and planet," he added.
The CEOs are, however, concerned about their exposure to rising inflation, macroeconomic volatility, climate change, and cyber risk in the next 12 months and 5 years.
Inflation is a key concern for the CEOs, as 49 percent of them indicated that they believe their companies will be highly exposed to global challenges in the next 12 months.
Although the region experienced strong economic growth in 2021, inflation remained at the highest level in the region's recent history.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
According to the Africa Development Bank's East Africa Economic Outlook 2022, the region's inflation averaged 40.6 percent in 2021 and was the highest amongst all African regions.
To overcome economic challenges and volatility, 37 percent of the CEOs surveyed indicated that they are partnering with government at the national or local level to create new sources of value.
A further 48 percent indicated that they were partnering with entrepreneurs to a moderately large extent.
The World Economic Forum highlighted Kenya as one of the only four African countries that currently receive 92 percent of all the continent's investment in technology, the other three being Nigeria, Egypt, and South Africa.
Over a third (39 percent) of the CEOs polled indicated that they are collaborating with competitors.
