The 2006 Grant Thornton International Business Owners Survey or IBOS, which was conducted in thirty countries and tallied 7,000 business owners, showed that the country scored fifth highest in the business confidence scale.

The survey, in its first release this year, said the business confidence for the Philippines as measured by an optimism/pessimism balance, improved from 50 in 2005 to 71 percent in 2006.

This ranked the country’s business confidence higher than Mexico (68 percent), Australia (64 percent), Singapore (64 percent), Hong Kong (61 percent), Netherlands (63 percent), Canada (57 percent), Sweden (51 percent), Germany (41 percent), Malaysia (36 percent) and the United States (32 percent).

On the other hand the top four countries inspiring optimism in their own respective business outlooks are India with 93 percent, Ireland with 84 percent, South Africa with 80 percent and Mainland China with 77 percent.

The IBOS report showed "marked shift in the mood of medium-sized businesses around the globe and a shift in optimism about the economy away from the robust performers of recent years such as the UK and the US."

According to the survey, 26 out of 30 countries are optimistic about their economy’s performance and in 13 countries, optimism has actually improved over the last year.

Based on the balance of optimism versus pessimism — Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands and the Philippines showed more optimism in their economy while the less optimistic nations are Australia, Canada, France, Greece, Italy, Taiwan, US and the UK.

Grant Thornton is an international membership group. It began its IBOS in 2002 and also conducts the European Business Survey.