Severe winter could have left Scots needing debt advice
Severe winter could have left Scots needing debt advice
- Thursday, 1 April 2010Having gingerly stepped into recovery, growth of the Scottish economy stalled over winter, potentially leaving many struggling for cash and seeking
debt solutions.
That is according to new data from Lloyds TSB, which reports that almost half of all Scottish firms suffered a decrease in turnover across the three months to the end of February. A further 28 per cent reported static turnover.
The most likely explanation is the severe weather conditions experienced, Lloyds contends.
In both the service and production sectors comma significantly more companies were reporting profit falls than were seeing increasing profitability, though the production sector was worse affected.
Overall net balance for turnover in this sector was -31 per cent, compared with -2 per cent the previous quarter, while service businesses' stood at -17 per cent, once again worse than the previous quarter.
Professor Donald MacRae, chief economist of Lloyds Banking Group Scotland, described the results as a "setback".
"After the worst result for trading conditions at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009, the Business Monitor showed four consecutive quarters of improvement," he said.
"It is unclear whether this [latest setback] is a one-off weather induced effect or a more persistent slowdown."
People across Scotland will certainly be hoping that the former is true as they look to avoid falling into
debt problems.

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