SINGAPORE: Fewer small companies in Singapore are confident that their businesses will grow in 2013 compared to the years before, found the CPA Australia Asia Pacific Small Business Survey.
The survey, conducted by accounting body CPA Australia between 2 and 15 October, covered 250 businesses that have fewer than 21 employees. The businesses surveyed spanned the retail, information, media and telecommunications sectors.
Businesses in Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, New Zealand and Indonesia were also polled for this report.
According to CPA Australia, confidence among Singaporean small businesses has been on a steady decline since 2010.
74 per cent of small Singaporean companies expect their businesses to grow in the year ahead, down from 77 per cent and 85 per cent in the last two consecutive years.
Gavan Ord, business policy adviser at CPA Australia said: "While confidence is relatively high, Singapore small businesses are significantly more likely to expect their business to 'grow a little' than 'grow strongly', indicating that business confidence is somewhat weaker than (what) the headline figure indicates."
"Reflecting this, the percentage of Singapore businesses that expect to increase their marketing spend in 2013 is the lowest of all markets surveyed," he added.
More Singapore businesses however expect the local economy to improve.
60 per cent of small businesses in Singapore expect the local economy to grow "strongly" or "a little" in the year ahead, compared to 56 per cent a year ago.
- CNA/jc
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