CEOs around the world have a positive outlook regarding the growth of their companies and the global economy for 2017. PwC’s 20th Global CEO Survey shows that 38 percent of CEOs globally are confident about their companies’ growth prospects and 29 percent believe that global growth will also rise within the year. What is driving growth? According to the survey, it includes organic expansion (79 percent), new merger and acquisition activity (41 percent) and reinforcing innovation capabilities to exploit for new opportunities (23 percent).

Thoughts on globalization tend to vary as the majority of CEOs are skeptical about whether globalization has had positive repercussions. The survey states that 58 percent of business leaders are finding it more difficult to balance globalization with rising protectionism.

Another important aspect to consider is maintaining trust in a technology dependent world. The survey shows that 23 percent of CEOs claim that technology will completely reshape competition in their industry within the next five years, and that 69 percent of CEOs consider it harder to gain people’s trust within a digital environment. The digital environment, the survey reports, is also leading around 52 percent of business leaders to explore how humans and machines can work together as soft skills and technological advances are seen as highly valuable.

CEOs report that the top five most significant countries for growth are the U.S., China, Germany, the UK and Japan.