The fear of global recession is the topic of discussion everywhere, even as PricewaterhouseCoopers released its 11th Annual Global CEO Survey on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2008 on Tuesday evening.

The results of the PwC survey were an eye-opener. CEO confidence about business prospects declined for the first time since 2003 and the fear of global recession emerged as the major threat to growth, the survey said.

The proportion of CEOs who said they are ?very confident? of revenue growth over the next 12 months fell two percentage points from the previous year, to 50%. But overall CEO confidence remained high. Against the background of worldwide market turmoil, the survey showed that CEOs remained nearly twice as confident as in 2003.

Not surprisingly, the overall drop in business confidence was most pronounced in North America, where only 35% of CEOs said they were ?very confident? of growth, compared to a much higher 53% last year, a decline of more than a third. Confidence among West European CEOs also declined to 44%, down by 8 percentage points.

In contrast, CEO confidence in the sharply growing economies of the Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Central & Eastern Europe rose to as high as 55% in each of those regions, the survey said. The mood was similar on the sidelines of the Davos summit, with most Indian CEOs and policymakers expressing confidence that the Indian economy will continue to grow despite the global turmoil and that the steep cut in interest rates by the Federal Reserve would not result in a problem for India in terms of monetary management.

India has a robust domestic economy, say delegates here. Commerce minister Kamal Nath, for instance, is one of those very confident. He says this is the first time the world was looking at a global recession and yet expressing confidence in India and China.

?This is also the time to note the importance of sovereign funds,? Nath pointed out.

Says Samuel A DiPiazza, global CEO of PwC: ?The credit crunch and the slowdown in western economies have created a clear split in the confidence levels of CEOs around the world. The possibility that the downturn could worsen into a recession looms large for CEOs in established economies like the US and Western Europe. In the newly emerged economies, CEO confidence remains strong, perhaps because they have experienced nothing but rapid expansion for a decade or more.?