For the second consecutive year, the stress levels endured by business owners in Taiwan of China were the highest in 2005 among business owners worldwide, according to the results of a survey released by Grant Thornton, a leading international financial and business adviser to mid- corporate businesses.

The 2006 International Business Owners Survey was carried out on more than 7,000 owners of medium-sized businesses from 30 countries and regions in the fall of 2005, according to a report reaching here from Taipei on Friday.

The survey shows that 57 percent of business owners around the world said they were more stressed than one year ago, compared with just 39 percent who said so in a similar survey conducted the previous year.

In Taiwan, 90 percent of the respondents said their stress had increased over the past year, up from the 69 percent registered in the previous survey.

Others at the top of the stress list include Chinese mainland, the Philippines, Botswana, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of China, Singapore and South Africa, in that order.

Of all the business owners surveyed worldwide, only 6 percent said their stress had decreased over the past year.

It was found that the stress levels were the lowest among business owners in Sweden, followed by Italy, Spain and France.

The report says that the stress levels of business owners are related to the number of holidays that they enjoy, noting that most business owners in Asia saw their stress levels increase last year mainly because they seldom took any days off or went on vacation.

For example, it says, business owners in Taiwan only took eight days off on average last year, while those in Thailand took four days and those in Malaysia had 10 days. This compares with business owners in European countries who had 22 days off last year on average.

Source: Xinhua