World business chiefs are more pessimistic about the future of the global economy than at any time in three years, according to a new poll.
Global chief executives fear the impact of a cocktail of risks from China's slowdown to the rise of the Islamic State group, the survey by accountants PwC showed.
The business leaders' nervousness has the potential seriously to affect their investment and growth plans.
Worries also included over-regulation and cyber security according to the poll conducted in the final quarter of 2015 and published at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos.
PwC chairman Dennis Nally said concerns over the global economy, which have caused turmoil in global markets in recent weeks, had combined with geopolitical issues to dent confidence and throw business leaders’ plans for the year into doubt.
He said: "When you put it all together, the outlook for 2016 is not as encouraging as many of us would have hoped for.
"I have to imagine that if we had done the survey in the first two weeks of January the results would have been even more gloomy. It's not a great picture, it's not a great outlook."
PwC said only 27% of top executives were confident that global growth will improve over the coming year, 10 percentage points down over the past year to its lowest level since 2013 – highlighting the extent to which the global recovery appears to be running out of steam.
PwC also found that 66% of chief executives think there are more threats to their businesses than there were three years ago, up 7 percentage points.
The poll comes a day after Bank of England governor Mark Carney said the collapse in oil prices and volatility in China were among the key reasons why now was not yet the time to raise the UK interest rate from its historic low of 0.5%.
Meanwhile the International Monetary Fund slashed its growth forecast for the global economy as it predicted a "bumpier ride" for 2016.
PwC's findings were released as Asian markets tumbled amid continued worries over the oil price slump and worries over the Chinese economy.
China's CSI 300 index slipped 1.5% while Japan's Nikkei fell by 3.7%, leaving it 20% below last year’s peak – meeting the technical definition of a so-called "bear" market.
(Sky News)
