More than half of the UK’s small businesses are confident about the state of the UK economy, according to a new survey.
The Bank of Scotland’s ‘quarterly small business economic confidence survey’ indicated that 56% of small business owners thought economic factors would improve or stay the same – an 8% increase from last year.
There was also a small increase in the confidence of business owners in their own firms, with 82% of the UK’s entrepreneurs saying they believed their business’s performance would be sustained or improved in 2007.
However, 68% of small business owners said that managing their company is now harder than it was five years ago – nearly a fifth cited legislation and red tape as the major contributing factor for this.
“The UK’s 1.4 million small businesses are the backbone of the economy,” said Kevin Gillett, head of business banking at Bank of Scotland.
“This report paints a very encouraging picture for 2007 with rising economic and business confidence levels.
“There are very clearly still some concerns over the impact of ever-increasing legislation, with more and more small business owner-managers indicating that it is harder than ever to keep trading. However their faith in their own entrepreneurial abilities wins out.”
© Crimson Business Ltd. 2007
