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Robust: KHUTSO MAMPEULE

This is the result of a survey conducted by the Young Presidents' Organisation among 2157 CEOs in the world.

The quarterly electronic survey, conducted in the first two weeks of last month, gathered answers from chief executives, of whom 80 were from Africa.

Globally, 27% of participants were from large companies with more than 500 employees, 38% from medium-sized companies (100-500 employees), and 35% from small companies (less than 100 employees).

YPO is a non-profit global network of 19000 CEOs.

The survey looked at expectations of economic growth, sales, investment confidence and employment growth prospects.

The Global Pulse Index for Africa, which represents the optimistic outlook, climbed 3.5 points in the fourth quarter to 63.6.

While a dozen countries are included in the survey for Africa, movements in the region were dominated by developments in South Africa, which has the highest weighting in the index for Africa.

After a slip of economic optimism by 6.5 points in South Africa over the first three quarters of 2011, the index rebounded sharply in the fourth quarter, recovering a significant portion of what it lost previously.

When asked to evaluate economic conditions today versus six months ago, 37% of reporting CEOs thought conditions had improved in that period of time versus 27% in the previous quarter. Only 27% thought conditions had worsened in the past six months, down from the 40% who thought so three months ago.

"Despite challenges in the Eurozone and parts of Asia, economic confidence among African CEOs remains robust," said Khutso Mampeule, chairman of South Africa-based Lefa Group Holdings, member of the YPO Johannesburg Chapter and the chair of YPO's Africa region.

"This should translate into new hiring in 2012."