Investors around the world voiced concern in a recent survey that the sovereign debt crisis that prompted bailouts of Greece and Ireland will cause at least one country to leave the eurozone in the next five years, according to Bloomberg. On Wednesday, Bloomberg’s Global Poll found that 59% of respondents forecast that one or more countries will quit the eurozone by 2016, while 11% foresee such a scenario within the next year. The poll comes at the opening of the World Economic Forum, at which New York University professor Nouriel Roubini called the debt crisis “one of the biggest risks to the global economy.”
The poll of 1,000 investors, analysts, and traders around the world found that almost three-quarters expected Greece to eventually default on debts, with 53% expressing the same expectation for Ireland, and 47% for Portugal. The respondents were almost perfectly split in half on whether the eurozone would break up as a result of the crisis, although the time-frame was widely seen as being outside of a five-year window. According to The Wall Street Journal, the results of the survey come as European Union leaders aim to unveil a “comprehensive package” to contain the debt contagion, with the German deputy finance minister offering late March as a tentative date for it to be unveiled.
Click here to read the story on the sovereign debt poll from Bloomberg News.
Click here for coverage of the rescue plan discussion from The Wall Street Journal.