Ventura County business owners are more optimistic than their tri-county counterparts, economists told a gathering in Camarillo on Nov. 12.

Some 31 percent of Ventura County business owners see improvement in the next three months, versus 10 percent of business owners in San Luis Obispo County and just 6.5 percent in Santa Barbara County. That’s according to the University of California, Santa Barbara, Economic Forecast Project’s business sentiment index.

At the forecast project’s 2010 Camarillo regional economic outlook gathering at the Spanish Hills Country Club, Eric Sonquist, director of the forecast project, said the divergence among the three counties is as wide as at any time in the forecast’s history.

Brad Kemp of Beacon Economics said Ventura County’s heavier concentration of manufacturing jobs and relatively smaller tourism and government sectors point to stronger prospects for the county in an export-led recovery. In particular, Camarillo’s limited-growth policies and 6,000 manufacturing jobs brighten its outlook, Kemp said.