Singapore- Chief executive officers (CEOs) in Asia are far more upbeat about the business outlook for revenue growth than their counterparts across the globe, a survey said Thursday.

The confidence outlook worldwide over the year ahead took a dive for the first time in five years.

The PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) survey of 1,150 chief executives revealed a far more upbeat tone in Asia.

In India, nine out of 10 CEOs are very sanguine over the next year, according to the findings in The Straits Times.

China and Hong Kong are tied with Russia at 73 per cent. Fifty- seven per cent of corporate bosses in South Korea are very optimistic.

"CEOs in this new world may have believed that their booming economies could isolate them, to some extent, from the problems affecting the old world," PWC's Subramaniam Iyler was quoted as saying.

Across the globe, only 50 per cent emerged as very confident, down from last year's figure of 52 per cent.

Britain's confidence level stands at 43 per cent, Germany at 57 per cent and Italy at 11 per cent, the survey revealed.

Only 36 per cent of CEOs in the United States are very confident of business prospects in the coming year.

The nervousness of CEOs in the West is driven by the "collapse of the US sub-prime mortgage market and ensuing credit crunch, rising energy prices, the shift in the global balance of economic power, the weakness of the US dollar," PWC said. (dpa)