Businesses upbeat on economy

WASHINGTON – The country’s top corporate executives foresee pretty good business prospects even as the economy gets squeezed by a housing collapse, a credit crunch, Wall Street turmoil and high energy prices.

A survey by the Business Roundtable, released Tuesday, showed that most executives expect sales, capital investment and hiring to remain at current levels or even improve in the coming months.

While the economy’s problems have caused consumer confidence to tank, the survey’s results suggest that corporate executives’ assessment is that the business climate remains generally healthy despite all the strains.

The economy, which logged its fastest growth in four years during the third quarter, is expected to slow to a pace of just 1.5 percent or less in the October through December period.

In the survey, 87 percent of chief executives said they expected their sales to hold steady or increase over the next six months. That’s down only slightly from 88 percent in the previous survey in September.

On the hiring front, 78 percent said they expected to hold payrolls at current levels or boost them. That’s up from 74 percent in the earlier survey.

Meanwhile, 86 percent said they would hold capital investment steady or increase it. That compared with 85 percent in the previous survey.

One of the reasons behind executives’ good outlook is that they expect overseas demand for their products and services to remain strong, said the group’s chairman, Harold McGraw III, president and chief executive officer of the McGraw-Hill Companies. Another reason: executives are not seeing a retrenchment by U.S. consumers, McGraw said. Still, consumer behavior is being watched closely, he said, because it is a major shaper of overall economic activity in the United States.

Health care and energy topped executives’ concerns about costs.

For all of next year, the executives said they expect the economy to grow by 2.1 percent, which would mark slower growth than is forecast for this year.