Regional Risks for Doing Business Report
Economic-related issues dominate the concerns of global business leaders
This briefing paper, prepared by the World Economic Forum with the support of Marsh & McLennan Companies and other partners, examines the regional risk environment for doing business in the light of the 2020 Global Risks Report.
With heightened economic uncertainty and increasingly decentralized threats, regional understanding of risks – and the opportunity for cooperation – is critical.
Results from the World Economic Forum's 2019 Executive Opinion Survey suggest that the threat of a major economic slowdown is high on the minds of business leaders worldwide, with growing apprehension about a wide range of geopolitical shock.
Globally, three of the top five risks identified by executives are economic-related, with “fiscal crises” topping the list, and "unemployment or underemployment" and "energy price shock" ranking as third and fourth, respectively. Fears of an "asset bubble" and "failure of critical infrastructure" are new entrants to the 2019 global top ten.
Economic and financial challenges are the leading risks for doing business in countries in the Middle East and North Africa: executives ranked "energy price shock", "fiscal crisis", "unemployment or underemployment", "unmanageable inflation" and "asset bubble" as the top five risks.
However, the top risks for doing business vary from one country to the other within each region. For more information on the top risks for doing business download the full report.
The Regional Risks for Doing Business is part of an expanded risks workstream, anchored by the Global Risks Report, which enables global stakeholders to identify common concerns, detect potential blind spots and promote coordinated risk mitigation.