BEIJING, Jan. 27-- Nine out of 10 chief executive officers(CEO) expect their revenue to rise this year, lifted by global economic growth near a three-decade high, according to a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

The New York-based accounting firm found that 91 per cent of 1,391 CEOs it interviewed were"very" or"somewhat" confident about the next 12 months.

In the survey released yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Pricewaterhouse called the figure"astonishing." It is up from 84 per cent in 2003 and 72 per cent in 2002.

Global economic growth will probably reach 4.2 per cent, following a 5 per cent advance in 2004, which was the biggest since 1976.

The average in the past decade is 3.8 per cent, the International Monetary Fund says.

The expansion will probably spur a third year of gains in stocks and push bonds lower, according to surveys by Bloomberg News.

"The mood for this year is reasonably positive," said Pascal Blanque, chief economist at Credit Agricole, France's biggest bank by assets."We seem to be in pretty good shape." Blanque expects US growth to slow to 3.6 per cent this year from 4.5 per cent.

Davos gathering

More than 2,250 policy makers, executives, and economists are gathering at the Swiss ski resort for the next five days. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac, Microsoft Corp CEO Bill Gates and Deutsche Bank AG Chief Josef Ackermann will attend the annual meeting, along with European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet and US Treasury Undersecretary John Taylor.

The chief executives said in the Pricewaterhouse survey the biggest threat to their businesses was excessive regulation, ahead of low-cost competition, oil prices that have risen 42 per cent the past year and the loss of talented employees.

Sixty per cent of the respondents said over-regulation was their largest concern, up from 59 per cent, the report showed.

The CEOs were divided on whether the benefits of building strong corporate governance systems, risk management and compliance outweighed the costs, according to the survey.

"Long way to go"

"There is no question that CEOs have a long way to go when it comes to effectively implementing governance systems, risk management and compliance," PricewaterhouseCoopers Chief Executive Officer Samuel A DiPiazza Jr said in a statement accompanying the survey.

CEOs must implement the regulation in"a meaningful way" for"a clear return on investment."

The firm found that 56 per cent thought greater emphasis on corporate governance had a"major impact" on their reputation while 37 per cent thought the same of its impact on financial performance.

Bankruptcies of companies ranging from Enron Corp and WorldCom Inc in the United States to Parmalat Finanziaria SpA in Italy have raised the level of scrutiny on company executives.

The US Congress introduced the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002, which requires executives to certify the accuracy of company books.

A record 414 US companies restated or announced revisions of profit or sales last year, according to a survey by Huron Consulting Group Inc.(Source: China Daily by John Fraher and Simon Clark)