PwC’s Annual Global CEO Survey ‘Overall sentiment reflects strong optimism about Pakistan’s economic growth’

KARACHI: Optimism about Pakistan’s economic growth is running high, with 83 percent of CEOs of leading companies expecting improvement, outpacing global sentiment, where 70 percent anticipate moderate growth.

These insights come from PwC’s Annual Global CEO Survey “The Next Leap: Charting the Path to Change”, which is a flagship initiative, capturing the perspectives of thousands of chief executives worldwide on the most pressing challenges and opportunities their organizations and industries face. This document provides insights from complete responses received from Pakistani CEOs on the same questions posed in the Global Survey to all the CEOs around the world.

This year’s survey features participation from 70 CEOs in Pakistan, representing a wide array of companies, industries, and sectors. Among the respondents, 70 percent are CEOs of publicly listed companies, while the remaining 30 percent lead privately owned businesses. Last year, 28 percent of respondents anticipated a decline in economic growth in Pakistan while 49 percent expected improvement. This year, the proportion of respondents expecting a decline has dropped sharply to 9 percent and of those expecting improvement have surged to 83 percent.

According to survey, the overall sentiment reflects strong optimism about economic growth in Pakistan, with 83of respondents expecting improvement. This surpasses the expectations for growth in the global economy, where 70 percent of respondents expect slight to moderate improvement.

Last year’s findings revealed that 45 percent of global CEOs (42 percent of CEOs from Pakistan) believed that their companies will not remain economically viable over the next decade if they continued their current paths, thus highlighting the need for business reinvention in the face of imminent change. The survey points to the significantly extended optimism of Pakistani CEOs about the economic growth of Pakistan and 83 percent expecting improvement vs 49 percent last year. They also seem confident about growth of their companies’ revenues in the coming years. Some 92 percent confident of improvement in the coming 12 months and 99 percent confident about such growth in the coming 3 years, with the majority 54 percent not expecting any significant change in their current staffing levels.

However, they continue to feel significant exposure of their businesses to the risks of macroeconomic volatility (46%), inflation (39%) and geopolitical conflict (31%), among others. The proportion of those feeling significant exposure to inflation last year has, however, decreased as it was 55 percent last year.

The confidence in revenue growth prospects over the next three years has improved, about which 63 percent of respondents were very or extremely confident last year. This year, the net confidence has risen to 68 percent. Notably, there is a significant drop in the percentage of respondents who are not confident about the growth of their company’s revenues in three years down to 0% from 8% of last year, and an increase in those who are slightly and moderately confident

Consistent with the last year, many of the CEOs some 44 percent believed there is a significant need to reinvent their business models as their businesses shall no longer remain viable beyond 10 years otherwise.

The need to reinvent seems to have increased the pace at which businesses are reallocating both their financial some 85 percent respondents reallocating some resourcesand human resources, while some 87 percent respondents reallocating some resources across their business units and focusing on, among others, targeting new customer base, developing innovative products and services, and implementing new pricing models.

Reinventing the business model is also increasingly leading a majority (54%) of respondents’ businesses to compete in new sectors and industries where they hadn’t previously competed, with consumer, retail and real estate being top new sectors on the list.

Additionally, some businesses are seeing early returns relating to AI, especially in the areas of profitability (27% respondents) and efficiencies in time at work for both the CEOs (51% respondents) and the employees (53% respondents), but the actual returns seem yet to catch up to the expectations.

According to survey, although many CEOs expect AI’s significant systematic integration into many processes, especially those relating to technology platforms (45% respondents), business processes and workflows (35% respondents) and workforce and skills (31% respondents), some also hint at significant trust issues (6% respondents) in embedding AI into their key processes which indicates a need for businesses to foster transparency, demonstrate AI’s efficacy, and provide training to build confidence.

Climate also comes out as a key area of focus with more respondents (39%) believing it to have increased their revenues than those (34%) who believe it to have increased their costs. Also, majority of respondents (58%) reported that they have some proportion of their personal incentive compensation determined by sustainability metrics.

The survey clearly depicts that most of the respondents have cautiously started taking some steps towards reinvention based on the significant trends relating to AI and climate affecting their businesses, but the momentum needs to accelerate further if their businesses are to sustain their confidence in entering the unknown future.

Over the past 27 years, this survey has provided unique insights into the minds of CEOs. To capture their specific perspectives and insights on these critical issues, CEOs of Pakistani companies are being included since last year’s edition of the Survey. This year 4,701 CEOs completed the survey globally representing responses from 109 territories emphasizing the global reach and impact of the survey.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025