Business leaders in Birmingham and Solihull are urging the
government to create the right environment to encourage investment
and sales.
Birmingham Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCI) expects the
Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to leave interest
rates at 0.5 per cent on Thursday.
However, policy adviser Will Rogers pointed out that Bullring
shopping figures had risen dramatically in the past few weeks and
that Jaguar Land Rover had posted a profit of £22m for the
September quarter.
He said it was unlikely that quantitative easing would be
extended, unless the economy suffered a major relapse in the final
quarter of 2009. Mr. Rogers added: "In the long term, the
challenge in the UK is to encourage businesses to invest in order
to aid the local economy and for the government to create the right
environment for sales.
"They can do this by announcing business-friendly measures in
tomorrow's (Wednesday) pre-Budget report. Among the options are
reducing employment costs, such as abandoning the proposed increase
in National Insurance contributions, eradicating red tape and
creating incentives for apprenticeships.
"Our economy is currently being aided by fiscal steroids such as
quantitative easing. This puts added pressure on quarter four's GDP
results, as the business community will be anticipating an
improvement on quarter three."