Where is Government backing for exports, asks Chamber

GROWTH among Notts exporters could be hampered by problems getting finance.

Derbys and Notts Chamber of Commerce said firms had encountered severe difficulties.

A new report commissioned by the British Chambers of Commerce found one in eight businesses using export trade finance had experienced problems securing it.

Nearly half of those which faced problems said they lost business to exporters from countries with state-backed export finance schemes.

The call for improved access to finance comes on the back of new export trade figures which show UK export sales in January suffering their sharpest drop in three years.

According to the Office for National Statistics, Britain's trade deficit with the rest of the world widened unexpectedly in January after lower sales of chemicals and other commodities led a drop in exports.

The trade gap in physical goods widened to £7.99bn, well above the £7bn forecast by analysts.

And the Chamber's last Quarterly Economic Survey found that export orders were down during the last three months of 2009 with Notts firms involved in exporting only reporting a slight rise in order expectations for the first quarter of 2010.

Chamber chief executive George Cowcher said: "Trade finance underpins 90% of all the UK's global exports. Yet unlike comparable trading nations such as Germany and the Netherlands, we don't have a state-backed scheme offering the export credit businesses need to fulfil orders."

"This puts British exporters at a disadvantage."