Bric-based multinational companies have placed highest trust and confidence in the UAE to base their headquarters, surpassing the major global economies like Germany, US and South Korea, said a survey released on Tuesday.

According to the US-based Edelman Trust Barometer, Russian, Indian and Chinese corporates showed their maximum trust in the UAE, higher than any other country in the world. Bric countries include Brazil, Russia, India and China.

Trust of Russian oligarchies nearly doubled by 32 points to 70 per cent, higher than Germany (27 per cent), South Korea, (43 per cent) and the US (13 per cent).

Similarly, Chinese-headquartered companies’ trust in the UAE jumped 21 points to 74 per cent while Indian MNCs confidence index in the UAE increased 13 points to 65 per cent, according to Edelman’s 2011 Trust Barometer.

Trust of Brazil-headquartered companies in the UAE doubled to 65 per cent – second to Mexico where Brazilians showed 86 per cent trust.

“There has been little image improvement in the West in Bric-headquartered companies, but the Bric firms’ business strategy to focus on emerging economies appears to be paying off,” said Richard Edelman, President and CEO of the world’s largest public relation firm.

The survey was conducted among 5,075 people in 23 countries across five continents.

Globally, the top four most-trusted headquarter countries for global companies are Germany, Canada, Sweden and Switzerland.

Edelman said trust in business saw a two-point global increase, surging in Brazil, rising Germany and holding steady in China and India. US was the outlier as trust dropped across all institutions – business, government, NGOs and media, falling by eight points to 46 per cent.

The survey results showed that search engines rank number one as the place people go first for information about a company, followed by online news sources and print/broadcast media.

Trust, according to the survey, in most industries is up globally with technology remain in the No.1 spot for the third straight year, followed by automotive and telecommunications.

Financial services was the least trusted sector globally with banks as the second-least trusted.

Edelman survey found that business is more trusted than government in one-third of the 23 countries surveyed.

In the last 12 month, 85 per cent of the respondents report they have bought the products or services of a company they trusted.

Conversely, 73 per say they refused to buy products or services from one they did not trust.