The business people of York should be happy - provided everything continues as predicted in the city's latest economic survey.

The survey of 135 responding businesses in the city by the City of York Council portended that by the end of this month, turnover, employment and exports would be slightly rosier.

Muz Mumtaz, economic development assistant for the City of York, said: "Normally the April survey tends to show an upturn in the city's economy. The April quarterly survey is due to start in the next few days and will throw light on whether their confidence was justified."

Expectations for the January to March quarter showed that more than half the businesses surveyed - 51 per cent - expected some change in their turnover and the majority of these - 34.3 per cent - expected an increase.

The balance between those firms expecting an improvement in sales as opposed to those expecting a fall reached +17.2. That is about the same as the previous quarter's expectation at about +17.6 but significantly better than a year ago when the difference was +7.7.

Most of the firms surveyed (65 per cent) again expected no change in the number of people on their payrolls, but of the remainder 25 per cent expected an increase in recruitment while 9.5 per cent expected a fall. Here the difference of +15.4 is well ahead of both the previous survey balance of +11 and a year ago of +3.1.

Confidence about exports this quarter also showed signs of improvement, with the majority (68 per cent) expecting some change in levels recorded last quarter; and most of these - 45.5 per cent - were braced for improvement, while just 23 per cent anticipated a drop-off.

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