Business community gets ready for the worse

There is no good news to be gleaned from the latest Midlands Gateway index, the bi-annual business survey of the midland gateway towns of Athlone, Tullamore and Mullingar.As an indicator of the general feeling in the business community the survey, conducted by the Tullamore firm Capital Securities, asked key questions on business "sentiment"- how businesses view the present and future of their concerns.And the results show that the business community is decidedly pessimistic about the months that lie ahead.The second section of the survey which records actual statistics on key economic indicators, wholly supports the pessimism felt within the Westmeath business community and show how deeply the recession is being felt in real terms.Rising Live Register figures, sharp falls in house building and house sales added to falls in the number of new cars registered paint a bleak picture of the current climate.In the survey, 79 per cent of respondents said that they expected their situation to worsen by the end of the year and just four per cent said that they anticipated an improvement in their business" fortunes.The key problem identified the survey is that while more than 73 per cent expect their turnover to fall again by the end of 2009, more than 40 per cent expect that they will not be able to increase prices to supplement the fall. As a result over 70 per cent of businesses expect their profits to plummet sharply in the coming months.On a personal level 52 per cent of the business people in Westmeath who completed the survey expect their home circumstances to take a turn for the worse in the coming months and 48 per cent expect to see a decrease in the number of people they employ.The business community"s black view on the economy is supported not least by the 65 per cent drop in the number of new cars registered in Westmeath. The figure exactly reflects the national average but Westmeath saw a slightly higher drop in house prices than the national average, with property values falling a further 9.9 per cent in the first months of 2009. The national average figure was 9.6 per cent.But there was a small piece of good news for the county as the increase on numbers on the Live Register rose by 18 per cent in the first months of this year, four per cent lower than the national average and two per cent less than numbers registered for benefits in County Offaly.