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SMEs have lost confindent.

 

Small business

About a third of small to medium-sized enter­prises feel less con­fid­ent about expand­ing this year after the gov­ern­ment’s Autumn State­ment, in a sign of the pess­im­ism spread­ing among many entre­pren­eur­ial com­pan­ies.

The pro­por­tion of SMEs plan­ning to expand has fallen from 38 per cent in sum­mer last year to 17 per cent now, accord­ing to a sur­vey by the Asso­ci­ation of Chartered Cer­ti­fied Account­ants and the Cor­por­ate Fin­ance Net­work.

Meas­ures intro­duced by min­is­ters to reduce the impact of infla­tion and mit­ig­ate an impend­ing reces­sion and rising energy costs have fallen short, accord­ing to the groups, which polled account­ancy pro­fes­sion­als on the fin­an­cial out­look of about 12,350 SME cli­ents.

The sur­vey’s find­ings high­light con­cerns among many smal­ler busi­nesses, some of which are under pres­sure to repay debts accrued dur­ing bruis­ing pan­demic-related lock­downs.

Higher energy costs have added to wider infla­tion­ary pres­sures.

The sur­vey will worry poli­cy­makers because small com­pan­ies tend to be more optim­istic than aver­age. Almost two-thirds of SME bosses said they were exper­i­en­cing higher levels of stress due to eco­nomic uncer­tainty, double the pro­por­tion six months ago.

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Comments

  1. Adam19 January 2023 at 12:30

    Until these higher energy costs are dealt with by the government, SMEs won't be able to think about expansion, only about survival.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mick19 January 2023 at 13:31

      Energy costs are killing small businesses! I don't understand why the government can't act swiftly and come up with better ways to deal with these and other limiting factors!?

      Delete
    2. Laura19 January 2023 at 16:52

      Yeah, just look at what Germany did and is doing and their economy was in a lot of trouble a few months ago and is seemingly doing well now.

      Delete

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