Saudi Arabia is the world's most economically confident country, topping the Ipsos research firm's chart with 90 percent. India came in second garnering 74 percent. Sweden is the third most economically confident country, where 73 percent are optimistic about their economy, followed by China (72 percent), Germany (71 percent), Australia (66 percent) and Canada (65 percent). The report, which examined citizens' assessment of the current state of their country's economy, said the overall global average economic confidence remained unchanged at 38 percent last month. On the other hand, only a handful of those in Hungary (3 percent) rate their national economies as “good”, followed by Spain (4 percent), Italy (6 percent), France (7 percent), Japan (9 percent) and Great Britain (10 percent). Countries with the greatest improvements include India, China, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, while, countries with the greatest declines are Argentina, Poland, Belgium, Indonesia and Australia. The survey was conducted in February this year among 19,216 people in 24 countries like Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the US. The survey presented an international sample of 18,829 adults aged 18-64 in the US and Canada, and age 16-64 in all other countries, were interviewed. Approximately 1,000+ individuals participated on a country by country basis via the Ipsos Online Panel with the exception of Argentina, Belgium, Indonesia, Mexico, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden and Turkey, where each have a sample approximately 500+. Weighting was employed to balance demographics and ensure the sample's composition reflects that of the adult population according to the most recent country Census data available and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe. A survey with an unweighted probability sample of this size and a 100 percent response rate would have an estimated margin of error of +/-3.1 percentage points for a sample of 1,000 and an estimated margin of error of +/- 4.5 percentage points for a sample of 500. 19 times out of 20 per country of what the results would have been had the entire population of adults in a country had been polled.
