FPB warns of challenging year ahead

FIRMS need to understand and embrace the new business environment to emerge successfully from the recession, according to the Forum of Private Business (FPB).

In its New Year message the Knutsford-based small business support group warns that 2010 will be a year of “great potential instability” and that the country has never faced such political and economic uncertainty thanks to confusing statistics about lending, output, sales and employment and a looming general election.

Phil Orford, chief executive of the FPB, said that the risk of a double dip remained.
He added that the only way business owners small and large could plan for growth and expansion with confidence was to be given a period of certainty and stability.

“The future of our business community and the economic recovery of our nation is dependent upon political responsibility, in which parties of all persuasions define policies in the interests of business growth, not those of political survival or electioneering,” he said.

Mr Orford also stressed that both borrowers and lenders needed a more informed, educated and collaborative way of doing business together and that management and financial information provided by small business owners to support funding applications would have to improve “significantly”.

He continued: “Utilising credit rating systems for best advantage and understanding the impact these ratings both business and personal have on lending decisions, will be a wake-up call for many entrepreneurs.

“Managing finances will be the biggest burden for many, even more so than today.”

He said that the FPB was also calling for an “environment to stimulate business growth” to help small firms.

“Small businesses are the lifeblood of any economy, and especially here in the UK. For decades, we have proved ourselves to be a nation of innovators and entrepreneurs. It is the businesses of all sizes, and those who run them, which generate the wealth for UK plc,” he added.

“It is the private sector that will generate the income to pay the taxes the Treasury needs to balance the books, and therefore an environment that stimulates business growth must be at the top of the political agenda.”

He continued: “Next must be public sector spending, pay and pensions. It is no longer sustainable to spend at the levels of the recent past, or to ignore the longer-term issues that threaten to undermine future economic stability.”