People across the globe believe Barack Obama will improve US relations with the rest of the world, a new survey for the BBC World Service released this week showed.

Large majorities in 15 of 17 countries who took part in the survey said they believed Obama would help improve relations between the United States and their home country. In fact, an average of about two in three people in all 17 countries who responded to the survey expressed such optimism.

The poll also showed that across the world, people listed the global financial crisis as a top priority for the new administration along with addressing global climate change, troop withdrawal from Iraq, resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and improving global relations. Less than three in 10 identified Obama's stated goals in Afghanistan as a top priority.

This current poll, completed in mid-December, compares favorably to an earlier global poll conducted in the summer that asked respondents to give their impressions of what an Obama administration would do to improve relations with their home country. While Obama scored high favorability numbers in the earlier survey, global approval and optimism jumped by more than 21 points in the most recent poll.

Four countries that showed the largest improvement in their views of Obama were China, Egypt, Turkey, and Russia. In the latter country, while only 47 percent of Russians expressed optimism for improved relations, that number grew by more than 400 percent since the previous survey. In Egypt and China, approval doubled.

More than three in four people in Ghana, Italy, Germany, Spain, France, Nigeria, and Mexico stated they believed that relations between the US and their country would improve under the Obama administration.

In Japan, one of two countries in which fewer than half of respondents stated they believed relations would improve, more than 80 percent stated that relations would stay the same (37 percent) or improve (48 percent).

Americans who responded to the survey agree that Obama's highest priority is the financial and economic crisis. Less than half listed continuing the war in Afghanistan as a top concern, while six of 10 Americans agreed that improving global relations should be high on Obama's list of things to do.