Small businesses will benefit from measures announced in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement according to the BPIF. “While tight public finances have clearly left the Chancellor with limited scope this autumn, we are pleased that a number of targeted measures to help smaller firms have been introduced covering lending, business rates, tax credits and infrastructure investment,” said membership director Dale Wallis.
Among those measures welcomed by the BPIF are:
- A support package for SMEs of nearly £1bn, which includes £500m of new bank lending under the Enterprise Finance Guarantee and a £400m extension to Enterprise Capital Funds delivered through the British Business Bank. The Bank of England-backed Funding for Lending Scheme has also been extended to January 2016;
- The announcement that the current double small business rate relief is to remain for another year, with the cap on the annual increase in business rates at 2% for all firms continuing through to March 2016. The BPIF is also pleased that a full review of the current much-criticised business rates system is promised;
- The Chancellor’s announcement that R&D tax credit for small and medium firms will be raised to 230%, which provides a much-needed boost for these companies;
- The abolition of national insurance contributions for apprentices under 25 from April 2016 (coming on top of the existing commitment to abolish NICs for those under 21 from April next year), which should encourage more employers to offer apprenticeships and help boost skill levels in the industry;
- The £15 billion infrastructure investment to be allocated for roads, which should help ease wasteful delays currently experienced in transporting printed products across the UK’s congested road network and boost growth in the regions.
The BPIF’s comment on the Autumn Statement came as it released figures from its latest Printing Outlook survey, that showed that Q3 had proved to be a positive environment for growth in output and orders - both showed a slight improvement on their Q2 status. Almost half (49%) of printers increased output in the third quarter of 2014. A further 29% held output levels steady whilst 23% experienced a fall in output. The overall improvement (the balance between ups and downs) was +26; slightly above the forecasted +22. The Q3 results have extended the run of consecutive positive quarterly reports to a year and a half. The output forecast for Q4 is for a further improvement on Q3’s performance. 38% of respondents expect to increase output levels; 56% predict stable output and only 6% expect output to decline in Q4.
Whilst not booming, confidence in the general state of trade in the printing industry is improving at a stable rate. The balance between those believing that market activity rose rather than fell was, at +26, a slight retraction from +29 in Q2 – but above the Q3 expectation of +21. As with orders and output this is now the sixth consecutive positive result and has come from 43% believing the general state of trade improved; whilst 17% reported a deterioration of trade in the industry, and 40% no change.
The forecast for the fourth quarter is very similar to the previous quarter’s forecast - a majority of 55% believe that trading activity will stay the same. That leaves 33% compared with 12% believing that the UK print market will improve rather than worsen. Competitors pricing below cost remains the main business concern among printers – on this occasion 64% of respondents noted that this was one of their top three business concerns. Concerns regarding the ability of profit levels to sustain required investment levels have grown to become the second ranked concern – with 24% of respondents selecting this. Access to skilled labour has now become the third ranked concern – as selected by 20%. Further concerns were raised regarding the future direction of paper and board input prices and the poor level of output prices that can be achieved.