The last quarter saw small businesses in the U.K. regain their confidence to pre-referendum levels but the falling pound is driving up costs and crimping profits, according to the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB).
The FSB’s Small Business Index has now turned positive, with the headline confidence measure at +8.5 compared to -2.9 in the previous quarter. At the beginning of 2016, before the U.K. voted to leave the European Union, the headline confidence measure was +8.6.
“We are delighted to see confidence bounce back at the end of 2016, effectively wiping out the fall we saw over the course of the year in the run-up to the EU referendum and its immediate fallout,” Mike Cherry, the FSB’s national chairman, said in a statement on Wednesday.
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