ELTinTero – Finance Blog

The officials admit that small business is the fundamentals of each country’s strong economy. That is why it should be supported and given better access to finance.

Now the European Commission is planning to expand support of small firms, so that they can grow and offer more working places. In fact, small and medium-size companies provide about 2/3 of jobs in the European private sector.

The main changes to be done include new set of regulations to define the corporate tax base, new VAT concept. It can help reduce bureaucracy and administrative burden for small-scale business. An analysis of illegal commercial activities within the EU will be made too.

Some EU countries have their own taxation rules and are quite slow to adopt any innovative programs. There were long debates about a single set of taxation rules, according to which all the companies will be able to calculate their income liable to taxes. Now, it is expected that the new initiative will be supported by nearly all the EU members.

It is also planned to draw investors’ attention to the opportunities of the small companies. It will guarantee better access to loans and finance.

This sector of small business shall also be supported by national governments. The European Commission, in its turn, is going to finance these programs and assign means to bring the planned strategy into practice.

The issue is discussed in the highest quarters as well. UK Prime Minister David Cameron is quite concerned about it and raised the problem during his recent meeting with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

They discussed such important moments, as digital market and e-business, new intellectual property rules, better support of all kinds of business activities, European standards and procurement regulations.

Most recent investigations and reports show that while consumers’ spending rose in December, their savings declined. According to the data provided by the Federal Reserve, there was an increase in consumer debt, mainly on credit cards, in December. These data can be proved by all the stores that faced that strong consumers’ wish to buy. Everyone knows that the most favorable season for the stores is holidays’ time, which is over now. But the sales continued to rise even in January! As many people say, now there is no fear of being dismissed and unable to find a new job. At the same time, after not spending much during the crisis, people want to breathe freely and go shopping. The result is that they spend their saved money without any hesitation. Lakshman Achuthan, the Managing Director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute in Manhattan, says that “strong across-the-board consumer spending is going to continue well into 2011”. Some people also admit that they have already booked vacations while they could not afford it before. It is a bright evidence of consumers’ confidence in their solvency. After a long stagnation a tendency of investing into expensive apartments was indicated. For example, Miss Evans says that she made a recent deposit of $5000 on an apartment in the center of New York. Consumers spend more not only at stores but also at restaurants and many other places. Analyst of RBC, Larry Miller admits that according to the latest researches the number of consumes wanting to pay much for eating at restaurants is 7% higher now than it was a few months ago. Less worried about any economic slowdowns, people are not afraid of spending their money. Hope, it will help make them happy and improve the world economic situation.

According to the recent researches, Australians are not as positive about their financial stability as other nations in Asia-Pacific nation.

Australia has quite a strong economy with positive indicators, but people are still a little bit concerned about the financial situation here. The main reason is the unstable situation in American and European economies and recent global financial slowdown.

Number of people worried about financial issue is rising in Australia. It has risen from 26 up to 29% lately.

Compared to many Asian markets, Australian one was not so fast to emerge after the crisis.

Australians don’t know what to expect, they are waiting for any turns for the better.

The research also shows that Australians do not rely on their large families as much as Asian nations do, they rather rely on themselves. They used not to think about their retirement age when they are young and capable of working.

Few Aussies have a kind of financial plan for the future. It is common here not to think about the future until you are over 50. Younger generation has much more things to think about and deal with than planning their retirement.

But it is very important to start thinking about these issues before you are even 35-40. It can be investments into real estate, life insurance programs and paying taxes as well.

Specialists say, it is possible to change people’s thinking even during the time of financial uncertainty. For example, some financial advisors admit that few of their clients pulled out the invested money during the global economic crisis. It could be explained also by Aussies’ confidence in their strong economy and ability for a quick recovery.

So, all we need now is just to make people understand that Australia gets a strong competitive edge on the financial position of many other countries.