European agency calls for small business support

Date: 23rd December 2008

A major European agency which represents the continent's small businesses has demanded improved support measures.

The Federation des Experts Comptables Europeens has published three policy statements outlining what it believes needs to be done to ease the impact of the financial crisis.

Included in the documents are suggestions that public authorities should quicken payment to small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) - such as limited companies - and that governments should consider underwriting business loans.

The statement read: "SMEs often suffer more rapidly and more severely from falling demand or tightening in the availability of credit.

"Simplification of regulation may be beneficial, notably to contribute [to] reducing SMEs administrative costs, but insofar as quality, reliability and transparency of information is not reduced."

Earlier this week, nebusiness.co.uk reported that as many as 80 per cent of small firms in the south Tyneside area were looking to expand over the next year.