The SME Growth Tracker has shown that SMEs experienced a significant decrease in confidence after the general election. On the 10th of July it was announced that in a quarterly survey, soon after the General Election, SMEs have expressed lower confidence than ever before.
The Q2 2017 SME Growth Tracker was released by Capital Economics and was commissioned by Amazon UK and Enterprise Nation. The survey was taken by 1,000 small and medium enterprises looks into the health and confidence of SMEs in Britain. The study was initially carried out by YouGov and offers a quarterly reflection of SMEs as well as monitoring central financial and economic trends of a type of business that make up 60% of the private sector employment in the UK.
The Growth Tracker Confidence Index score has dropped from +3 in the first quarter to -11 in this quarter. The confidence in the overall economy has also dropped from -11 to -27. With this rater pessimistic outlook on the British economy and business prospects it is unsurprising that only 21% of the SMEs involved in the study have said that they feel that conditions will have improved by this time next year.
Although SMEs are significantly less confident, they still feel that growth is possible. The research that has been published showed that growth is expected to increase from 0.8% to 1.7% over the course of the next twelve months. This is however still lower than the growth predictions from the first quarter of this year.
It is thought that the outlook for exports is positive overall, with the export revenue from the European Union being the main exception. Because of this exception, companyâs feel that the top priority is for the Government to negotiate a trade agreement for after Brexit, then to establish trade agreements with the U.S and other European countries that operate outside the EU and China.
