Taxes continue to be a major issue concerning industrial manufacturing leaders with 47% of CEO survey respondents saying tax policies significantly impact their site-location decisions, PricewaterhouseCoopers reported in its annual CEO survey released Feb. 8.
CEOs said they plan to pay close attention to changing tax conditions because of financial crises in developed economies, PwC reported. Among those surveyed, 37% said they expect to change growth strategies because of high debt and deficits in such regions.
That's higher than 29% of overall survey respondents reporting the same concern. The PwC survey involved 1,258 CEOs based in 60 countries across various industries. A total of 156 CEOs in 41 countries from the industrial manufacturing sector participated in the survey.
Meanwhile, 40% of CEOs in the industrial manufacturing sector said they expect the global economy to decline in the next 12 months.
But nearly four-fifths of industrial manufacturing CEOs said they're somewhat, or very confident of revenue growth over the next 12 months.
In addition, 68% of industrial manufacturing CEOs said they are placing a greater focus on innovations designed to reduce the cost of existing processes.
Despite the economic uncertainty, 35% of industrial manufacturers said they plan to complete a cross-border merger or acquisition in the next 12 months, PwC reported.
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