4 in 10 accountants bearish on economy

But more Singaporeans believe the economy is getting better.

According to the Global Economic Conditions Survey for 2Q12, only 13.8% of Singaporeans think the economy is getting better. 11.3% admit that the economy is at the bottom but is recovering, while 20% believes that the economy will remain weak for a while. 42.5% said that the economy is getting worse, while 12.5% said they don't know. 

Here's more from GECS:

GECS autioned that growth across the world's most developed economies has stalled once again and that the global economy is as fragile as it has ever been in the last three years. The global survey of 2,700 professional accountants, now well into its third year, suggests that hints of a stronger recovery in early 2012 were mostly down to misplaced optimism, and that most of the gains made at the time have since been reversed.

Once the undisputed leader of the global economic recovery, Singapore spent the second half of 2011 as one of the Global Economic Conditions Survey’s least confident markets. Over the last nine months, however, it has recovered steadily. While the share of respondents reporting confidence gains has remained stable over the last three months at 12.5%, that of respondents reporting losses fell from 53% to 44%. This suggests that business confidence in Singapore is marginally higher than in the rest of the Asia-Pacific region.

Respondents in Singapore are also beginning to put more faith into the global economy, with one in four (25%) now believing the global recovery is on track, up from 21% three months ago.

Respondents in Singapore expect that Government will spend quite aggressively over the next five years to ensure the recovery is maintained, although on balance they feel more could be done. This makes Singapore one of the few major GECS markets in which fiscal stimulus appears to be sustainable.

The GECS was done by ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) and IMA (the Institute of Management Accountants).