New research from the Grant Thornton International Business Report (IBR) indicates that 14% of Armenian businesses are optimistic for outlook of country's economy over the next 12 months (compared with 42% in Q4 2012).

Globally, net 27% of businesses are optimistic about the economic outlook, up from just 4% from the previous quarter.

Optimism in the United States shot up from -4% in Q4 2012 to 31% in Q1 2013. In China business optimism rose from 19% to 29%, and the perennial pessimists of Japan improved massively from -70% to -2%. Confidence even seems to have returned in the troubled PIGS  economies (-56% to 15%).

Businesses in the G7 (34%, up 7 percentage points), North America (33%, up 5) and the PIGS economies (42%, up 27) all report strong  rises in investment expectations.