Small business fears for tough times ahead

But there were some signs of optimism with more than a third believing that their own business would improve over the next year. Yorkshire Bank regional director Kath Myers said: It s hardly surprising that UK SMEs are expecting a bit more turbulence in their markets. For the past five years the UK has been both economically and politically stable, house prices continued to rise and interest rates were, up until the start of the year, at expected levels.

However, since the start of the year we ve seen rate rises, and the US sub-prime market collapse. The picture nationally is slightly more upbeat with around 60% of SMEs nationally believing that trading conditions will be harder yet just under half remain positive about their prospects in the coming year.
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