WASHINGTON - The Business Roundtable's March 2004 CEO Economic Outlook Survey shows that CEOs of major United States corporations expect steady improvement in economic conditions, with projections for modest job growth, high levels of sales, and greater capital investment in the next six months.

The Business Roundtable is an association of chief executive officers of large corporations with a combined workforce of more than 10 million employees in the U.S. and $3.7 trillion in annual revenues.

The CEOs' economic projections led to another increase in the Roundtable's CEO Economic Outlook Index, which has now risen to 94 percent, up from 89 percent in the last survey (December 2003).

On average, CEOs expect real gross domestic product (GDP) growth to be 3.7 percent in 2004, which is a slight improvement over the 3.6 percent projection made in December. By comparison, the average annual GDP growth over the past year was 3.1 percent.

Publication date: 03/01/2004