"We're living in a slow growth world." That's how Dow Chemical Chairman and CEO Andrew Liveris described the global economy on CNBC Wednesday, following his company's release of better-than-expected earnings and revenue.
The pre-2008 economy should be viewed as a bubble, he said in a "Squawk Box" interview. "This 5 percent world economy, I think, is very much in the past. If we've got a 3 percent, 3.5 percent world economy we'll all be very happy."
"But we don't tend to have that. We have this very uneven global economy," he argued. "This post 2008, 2009 period for a couple of years we had a head-fake that the growth might have returned, but it didn't."
Last month in its twice-yearly economic prospects report, the World Bank trimmed its global growth estimates to 2.8 percent this year, below its prior forecast of 3.2 percent made in January.
"The United States is the economy I feel best about," said Liveris. "But still 1.5 percent, 2 percent, 2.5 percent—it's still not strong enough for all of us."
Read MoreMortgage applications rise as refinancing picks up
At its June meeting, the Federal Reserve cut its forecast for U.S. economic growth this year to a range of 2.1 percent to 2.3 percent from an earlier projection of around 2.9 percent.
"If you don't focus in on cost, capital, cash in this economy you won't grow margins, no matter what you're innovation agenda," Liveris said.