UK SMEs Confident About Their Own Businesses, But No Hope Regarding General Economy

According to the data released by Continental Research Business Omnibus, small companies in UK are regaining confidence in their own trading prospects. However, that is not the case with overall economy; the companies still feel that the recession is not yet over.

Net trading prospects remain unchanged gaining just two points between the third and fourth quarters of 2009. In contrast, in the fourth quarter, confidence regarding improvement of general economy began to fall from 34 in September to 21 at the close of the year.

The above results suggest that though the prospects of own businesses are slightly increasing, many of the business owners still believe that the economy is experiencing downturn.

Businesses having turnover of between £250K and £500K were not very optimistic, coming down by some 23 points since the third quarter of 2009. Contrastingly businesses with a turnover of between £50K and £100K dropped only by seven points, signaling regained confidence and those turning over £100K-£250K dipped by 13 points while those at the upper end of the sample slipped down nine points.