Another sign emerged Wednesday that the struggling economy is working its way out of its doldrums.

A survey of executive chartered accountants indicates their optimism in the economy is rising throughout Canada and in Alberta.

Optimism about the country's 12-month economic prospects increased sharply in the second quarter from the previous one, according to a report by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants and the Royal Bank of Canada.

At the national level, 28 per cent of chartered accountants in senior financial management positions are optimistic about the Canadian economy, up from a meagre four per cent in the previous quarter and two per cent in the fourth quarter of 2008, said the survey. Optimism levels have returned to where they were a year ago, but still lag far behind those recorded in the final three quarters of 2007, when the levels were 67 per cent, 66 per cent and 63 per cent.

Optimism in Alberta peaked in the second quarter of 2007 at 94 per cent and stood at 86 per cent in the second quarter of 2008. But in the third quarter of 2008, it began to fall to 80 per cent and then 15 per cent in the fourth quarter of that year.

It plunged to 11 per cent in the first quarter of 2009 and rose to 33 per cent in the second quarter.

"If you go back to what it was like in the first quarter and the fourth quarter of last year, we entered a recession and a liquidity problem around the world that I don't think any of us had ever seen before, anything so widespread. It was worldwide," said Doug Baker of Calgary, who is chairman of the chartered accountants institute.

Oil prices dropped during that period, after reaching a high of$147 in July 2008.Baker said there is a glimmer of hope now with oil prices rising, but the natural gas sector remains in doubt.

"There's still a lot of uncertainty out there and that's why you haven't seen things turn around really vibrantly," said Baker.

The level of optimism in the economy is dependent on the various business sectors, said Adam Legge, vicepresident and chief economist with Calgary Economic Development.

About two-thirds of the respondents in the accountants' survey said they expect the Canadian economy to return to economic growth by the end of the second quarter of 2010 at the latest. RBC Economics believes this may happen sooner, even as early as September.

"One encouraging sign is the level of business investment. Despite a sharp decline in the first quarter of 2009, the pace of decline of business investment appears to be easing. As inventories and resources become depleted, we will see businesses cautiously taking the steps to be recovery ready," said Shauneen Bruder, an executive vicepresident for RBC.