Sector seeing better credit conditions

The EEF, the manufacturers' organisation, said that, over the past quarter, the proportion of companies reporting an increase in the fees and interest rates on new and existing credit facilities has continued on a downward trend. However, the percentage of companies seeing costs fall remains unmoved.

The EEF said that any signs of improvement were encouraging but stressed that there was no room for complacency in attempts to ensure companies could access the finance they needed to invest and grow.

Lee Hopley, the EEF chief economist, said: "Any sign of improvement in access to finance is welcome and the survey suggests industry may be past the worst of the problems. However, we are not out of the woods yet. Banks, industry and government need to push ahead with efforts to bring down the cost of borrowing and get credit flowing more freely to those companies that need it.

"The window of opportunity to address this will not remain open indefinitely and failure to take action now risks weakening economic growth over the rest of this Parliament."