ROAD TO RECOVERY
Page 3
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• This week marks the official end of the recession — or so the Government would have us believe. In March, Chancellor Norman Lamont predicted in his Budget speech that recovery would begin in the second half of the year.
Well, the second half of the year is here, so where are the signs of recovery? Almost all the financial indications are that for haulage, and most other industries, things are likely to get worse before they get better. Truck sales for the first five months of the year, at 14,101, were down almost 40% on the corresponding period in 1990. Forecasts are also bad. A survey by City firm Dun & Bradstreet on Monday revealed that 900 firms are going out of business every week. Many of these are hauliers and most of the others will have had transport firms as creditors.
Interest rates are a real problem — for operators paying through the nose for a lease-purchase truck, they can be catastrophic. Bad debts, from customers falling victim to the recession, and slow payment are equally disastrous: all too often it is the big companies which take the worst liberties.
It will be a long, slow road to recovery and hauliers must wait for other businesses to prosper before work picks up. But for many, a swift 2-3% cut in interest rates could mean the difference between survival or going under. And that is one way that the chancellor could help make his pre diction come true.