Business Owners Optimistic Most Upbeat About Prospects For This Year

Small-business owners in the state of Washington expressed broad optimism about 1996 in a survey conducted by the Washington Small Business Development Center.

Their views mirrored those of small-business owners nationwide in a similar survey conducted by Dun & Bradstreet Information Services.

“For the second year in a row, small-business owners have reported good news,” said William F. Doescher, senior vice president at Dun & Bradstreet.

In Washington, the ninth annual Washington State Small Business Forecast shows that nearly half of the state’s small-business owners believe the state’s economy will improve in 1996, while 34 percent believe conditions will remain the same.

Those business owners showed greater optimism about their local economies. Fifty-five percent of the 400 business owners interviewed thought their local economies would expand. That’s up from 52 percent in the 1995 survey.

Seventy-two of the respondents expect the prime interest rate to remain the same or move lower, while 60 percent expected the rate to increase in the 1995 survey.

Sixty-four percent expect sales to increase, with only 10 percent anticipating a decline in sales during the coming year.

In the national survey, more than half of the small-business owners polled expect increases in revenue, profits and number of customers.

The survey found that small-business owners have been keeping debt under control, with 28 percent expecting to reduce their debt and 34 percent anticipating their amount of debt to stay the same; 25 percent said they had no debt.

The survey also found that handling insurance costs was one of small-business owners’ major problems.

“Small-business optimism is significant and comes at an important time in the business cycle when several indicators point to a slowing economy,” Doescher said.

, DataTimes