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Barclays Bank based its research on the number of new accounts opened by Barlclays and taking account of its market share. It claimed that 197,100 companies started up compared with 246,400 in the same period last year.
Small Business Minister, Alun Michael, recently claimed that 'there are now four million small businesses in the UK – three hundred thousand more than in 1997 with new companies starting up at the rate of more than one thousand a day.
Barclays attribute the large drop in part to their belief that levels of start-ups have been unsustainably high for the past two years and that the 20 per cent fall should be seen in 'relative terms'.
John Davis, director for small business at Barclays, said: "It's not so worrying. The drop seems so large because levels of start-ups have been unsustainably high for the past two years. But the slowing economy is putting people off a bit.
Mr Davis said potential entrepreneurs were less likely to take the plunge into business when the economic outlook was not as stable, given that going it alone was a "life changing" event for many.
Full article: Start-ups in UK suffer biggest slump in decade Telegraph.
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Susie Hughes © Shout99.com 2005
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