Unilever CEO Paul Polman has dismissed analysts’ concerns that a strong dollar will prove problematic for businesses with a strong presence in emerging markets in 2017.

“I don’t have that many worries – currencies go up and down and we deal with that,” he told Gulf News. “That’s there in the history of any company that’s been around a long, long time. We know how to deal with it.

“Sixty percent of our business is in the emerging markets – in fact, we would call it the growth markets. There’s never a question of being overexposed to these markets,” he continued. “Whether one likes it or not, in 30 years, 80 percent of the world’s population will live outside Europe and the US… being in 190 countries of the world makes us globally diversified and leveraged.”