HÀ NỘI — Việt Nam is ranked fifth in the list of the world’s most optimistic countries on economic prosperity in 2017, according to a survey by WIN/Gallup, the world’s leading association in market research and polling.

WIN/Gallup International published its 40th End of Year Survey exploring outlook, expectations, views and beliefs of 66,541 people from 66 countries across the globe in 2016.

The 2016 edition includes Việt Nam data representing the views of 700 respondents from Hà Nội and HCM City interviewed face-to-face by market research company Indochina Research (Việt Nam) Ltd, a member of WIN/Gallup.

The survey revealed that about 59 per cent of the respondents are optimistic about the economic outlook for 2017, 12 per cent are pessimistic and 26 per cent believe the economy would remain the same.

When it comes to global economic outlook, despite much of the world largely remaining out of recession, economic optimism declined from twelve months ago. The study showed that 42 per cent of the world is optimistic for the economic outlook in 2017, almost double (22 per cent) of those who are pessimistic.

Net optimism (the percentage of those saying next year will be one of economic prosperity minus the percentage who say next year will be one of economic difficulty) has fallen from +23 per cent to +20 per cent.

Việt Nam is also ranked the fourth happiest country in the world, following Fiji, China and the Philippines, the survey said, adding that 79 per cent of the respondents answering they were happy and only 1 per cent said they were unhappy. — VNS